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The Heartland Institute’s Donald Kendal, Jim Lakely, Justin Haskins, and Chris Talgo present episode 456 of the In The Tank Podcast. We are now two weeks removed from what might go down in history as the worst performance in a presidential debate of all time, and the story continues to garner massive mainstream attention. President Biden's horrible performance on the debate stage has resulted in a tidal wave of criticism and calls to step aside by many of the most influential people on the left. This is unprecedented. How is this going to play out? Will Biden step aside? How will this impact the rapidly approaching presidential election?
PRIMARY TOPIC - WORST POLITICAL BLUNDER EVER!
PRIMARY TOPIC - WORST POLITICAL BLUNDER EVER!
Politico - New York Times editorial board urges public Democratic revolt against Biden
CBS News - Here are the Democratic lawmakers calling for Biden to step aside in the 2024 race
Independent - All the celebrities who have called for Joe Biden to step down, from George Clooney to Stephen King
National Review - President Biden Marches His Party Off a Cliff
CBS News - What would happen if Biden stepped aside from the 2024 presidential race?
NYT - How Misleading Videos Are Trailing Biden as He Battles Age Doubts
(video) "Sharp as a tack" montage
ABC News - White House fires back at special counsel report, Harris calls descriptions 'politically motivated'
Media Matters - Study: Top newspapers fixate on Biden's age
Creators & Guests
Host
Host
Host
What is In The Tank?
The weekly flagship podcast from The Heartland Institute features in-depth policy discussions connected to current news. Host Donald Kendal leads the discussion with the usual crew of Heartland Institute Vice President Jim Lakely, Socialism Research Center “Commissar” Justin Haskins, Editorial Director Chris Talgo, and others at this national free-market think tank. The entertaining and informative discussions often hit topics such as the environment, energy policy, Big Tech censorship, the troubling rise of socialism, globalism, health care, education, that state of freedom in America and around the world, and much more.
This podcast is also available as part of the Heartland Daily Podcast, the “firehose” of all the organization’s podcasts that take deep and entertaining dives into public policy.
Alright, ladies and gentlemen. We are live. Move over, Dean Scream. We just witnessed the well, it's been 2 weeks. But we witnessed the biggest political blunder of all time.
Donald Kendal:It has sent the entire political sphere into an absolute state of, disrepair. So we're gonna be talking about this. What does this mean for the election? What does this mean for Joe Biden? What does this mean for the democratic party, And how is this all gonna play out over the next several months?
Donald Kendal:We're gonna be talking about all this and more on episode 456 of the in the tank podcast.
Joe Biden:Guys, do not listen to the Imitation podcast. Is a dangerous show of dangerous men with some dangerous malarkey, and I do not stand for it. Alright. Where's my vice president, Condoleezza Rice?
Donald Kendal:Wow, Joe. You're actually sounding a little bit better than you were a couple of weeks ago. You've, downgraded a lot since, when that was originally recorded, apparently. But, yes, welcome to the The Tank podcast. As always, I'm your host, Donald Kendall.
Donald Kendal:And joining me today, I've got a full crew. I've got Jim Lakeley, VP of the Heartland Institute. How are you doing today, good sir?
Jim Lakely:I'm doing great. I'm glad to be back in the In The Tank podcast Saddle after a couple of weeks away. I went up to visit, some family in Alaska, and I promised that if I wasn't mauled by a bear or trampled by a moose or eaten by a killer whale that I would return, and I've returned.
Donald Kendal:That is true. That is absolutely true. Also joining us, we have Justin Haskins. He is a senior fellow for the New Journalism Research Center here at the Heartland Institute. How are you doing today, good sir?
Justin Haskins:Doing great. Great to be here with all of your smiling faces. Better than Joe Biden. I guess I could say that. So
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I think he's playing right.
Justin Haskins:Could be worse. Could have could have an army of people on my own side saying I'm mentally incompetent and should be shipped off to an old person's home. So, yeah, it could always be worse. That's that's, I guess, the big take home message for today's show.
Donald Kendal:Good point. Good point. Chris Talgo, editorial director here at the Heartland Institute. How are you doing today? Good, sir.
Donald Kendal:Are you being threatened to be shipped off to a, assisted living facility?
Chris Talgo:Well, I hope not. Hope not yet. I think I still got a couple decades in me to, keep going here. I don't know about
Justin Haskins:That's what Joe Biden thought too, Chris, by the way.
Chris Talgo:That's true. That's true. I'm really looking forward to his big big boy press conference coming up today.
Donald Kendal:Cannot That's great point. Yeah. Might be one of the best
Jim Lakely:press conferences
Donald Kendal:ever. Just it's it's almost like a hallmark of our show that there's some big news event that always happens on Thursday afternoon or Thursday night or something like that, and we have to have a show right before it. 2 weeks ago, that was the the case with the debate. So Jim was not there. It was just me, Chris, and Sam Karnick, and we were speculating about what was gonna happen at the debate.
Donald Kendal:And, it went it went in a different direction, I think. I don't think any of us, thought that what went down was going to go down. And what was funny was last week, we didn't do an episode, obviously. It was Independence Day, and Jim was actually pressuring me to, like, you know what? Maybe we should do an episode.
Donald Kendal:Maybe we should, you know, take an hour out of our, you know, Independence Day celebration and do an episode. Obviously, there's a big story going on, all of the chaos going on with Joe Biden and all of that. And unfortunately, I had made some plans, so I was unable to do that. And I was a little disappointed because it was a great story topic and because of the rapidity of the news cycles in this day and age. Like, we might have been moving on to a whole new thing by today.
Donald Kendal:That was not the case. This story is still going full force. So now we've got 2 weeks of content to discuss and get through, when it comes to the story of Joe Biden and his just crashing presidential campaign. Like I said at the beginning of this, this, this is just unprecedented what we are witnessing today. And and, so we're gonna be talking about it.
Donald Kendal:We're gonna be talking about it a lot. So I guess the first thing I don't wanna spend too much time on this just because the debate itself is is 2 weeks old. But I do I am curious about kind of, your what your initial reactions were to the debate because in my, when I watched it so I watched the whole thing. I watched it from beginning to end, and then afterwards, you know, we were watching TV or something like that, and I was thinking, like, yeah. You know, Joe Biden was basically Joe Biden.
Donald Kendal:Like, this is what I expected of it. And my takeaways were like, oh, the stuff about the golf was funny. You know, some of the things that Biden said were frustrating to me. But it wasn't until later on that night when I was, like, salt mining through, Twitter that I just saw everyone was just unanimously, like, this was an absolute train wreck that it, like, dawned on me just how terrible that performance was. And I was trying to figure out, like, why that was.
Donald Kendal:Like, why didn't that register with me right away? And I think it's because we cover Joe Biden all the time on this podcast. We're we're very aware of his kind of mental shortcomings and his, you know, sundowning and all of that sort of stuff. So when he was doing all of this on the stage during the debate, it wasn't anything new to me. And I apparently was new to all of these MSNBC and all these commentators and liberal talking heads and all of that, they had to, like, pretend like this was a new development for them, and they had to, like, feign, you know, surprise and shock and all of that.
Donald Kendal:So that that was my reaction. It wasn't until, like, hours later that I realized just how bad this was. I'll go to I'll go to you first, Justin. Just initial takes before we get into some, some of the specific angles I wanna talk about in this podcast.
Justin Haskins:So per usual, I did not watch it live. And so, I was getting, you know, blasted with text messages from people all over the place. You know? We're a lot of us on this show are in a a text thread. And, so there was, like, 50 unread messages from that.
Justin Haskins:I was on vacation, and I'm out by the beach enjoying my life. And I'm getting, you know, hammered with all these. I'm also on the West Coast, so everything is happening earlier. So then later, in the night, I started, watching some. I watched some a lot of it the next day, and it was just I mean, the as bad as the text messages were saying, this is a train wreck as bad as the headlines were saying, oh my god.
Justin Haskins:Like, this is a catastrophe. It did not live up to the actual watching of this of this thing. I mean, it was it was brutal. It was the worst political moment, political moment. It was the worst political moment for any presidential candidate ever.
Justin Haskins:There were certain parts, I would say I would argue there were probably, like, 3 moments in this debate that were the 3 worst political moments for anyone ever. All in the same debate, like, different individual snippets where Biden is just, like, stumbling through things, forgetting what he's saying. I mean, everybody by now has heard a lot of these clips. They know how bad it was. But it's just it was just I mean, truly the worst thing I've ever if I was Trump and I was and I if I was in Trump's campaign and I was saying, let's put together a commercial to run-in swing states, the commercial would be just the worst moment from that debate completely uncut.
Donald Kendal:Right.
Justin Haskins:Just Biden that you know, there was one in particular 22nd clip or so with him stumbling through, and it ends with him talking about, beating Medicare, which makes no sense at all. And that would be the clip. And then it would just be like, you know, Donald Trump just smiling, saying this message is approved by Donald Trump, and then that's it. Like, the whole it's all it is. Just just who is gonna vote for this man to be in charge?
Justin Haskins:And then and and then just the last takeaway from it. This was not my my first main thing, but, I heard a couple of pundits, not many, make this point afterwards, and then I realized I I felt sort of guilty for not having this opinion initially. But the worst of it is really that everyone's reaction following the debate has been mainly focused on the politics of it. Joe Biden shouldn't be the candidate. What if Joe Biden drops out?
Justin Haskins:Can Joe Biden even drop out? Who would be his, would would Kamala Harris be the replacement? Who would be her running mate? How does the campaign finance part work? What if they make him the the nominee?
Justin Haskins:Do they have do it before the convention, after the convention? These are the main things everyone's talking about. But what about just the fact that this guy is the guy who in the middle of the night, if there is a, nuclear war breaking out, has to be the one to make the decision about pushing the button to to launch, you know, to launch a nuclear war. Like, this guy, the guy we saw is is the most powerful man in the world. He's in the most powerful position in the world, and and this guy cannot, string 2 sentences together.
Justin Haskins:But we're supposed to believe that in the middle of the night, when we find out that China invaded Taiwan, that this guy is the guy make calling the shots, like half asleep Joe Biden? Like, can you imagine what that guy's like? This this was fully awake, drugged up Joe Biden, and he was a disaster. Half asleep, sleepy Joe? I mean, oh my god.
Justin Haskins:Like, we're all gonna die. Then this guy cannot should not be present. He should resign right now. Forget about the politics. What about just, like, the nation and the fact that we're we have a commander in chief who thinks his wife is his sister.
Justin Haskins:You know? Like, what about that? I mean, that to me is the biggest takeaway from all of this. It's just is just how dangerous it is that he's still in office. And the fact that there is anybody saying that that that isn't true after watching that debate, it just I mean, it is it is truly unbelievable.
Justin Haskins:People care more about politics than they do about the survival of the nation. Like, that's clearly the case. Otherwise, no one will be defending.
Donald Kendal:We're gonna we're gonna be talking about a lot of the stuff that you mentioned there throughout episode. But, Chris, the last time you and I were on the show, we were speculating about how we thought the the debate was gonna go down. And I, you know, probably last time around, you know, the the first time Joe Biden took on Donald Trump and they had the debates, I probably would have guessed something like this was gonna go down. That that was probably my prediction back then. It was, like, what we witnessed 2 weeks ago was gonna go down.
Donald Kendal:And this time, because Joe Biden was able to kinda, like, you know, stumble his way through, like, 4 years ago or whatever, I kinda eased back my when it came to how this was gonna go down. And I thought, like, oh, yeah. He'll get through it, and he'll say his, like, frustrating talking points. And the moderator's gonna help him out. And anytime he's in trouble, they're gonna just, like, you know, try to push him along.
Donald Kendal:Didn't happen. This was this was as bad as I could have guessed. So, I forget. Were were you were you thinking that it was gonna go down like this, or was this way worse than your expectations?
Chris Talgo:I mean, I had very low expectations for Joe Biden's performance, but even he somehow exceeded those low expectations. And, I mean, like you said, first of all, I thought the the format of the debate and the fact that it was hosted by CNN and the moderators were Jake Tapper and Dana Bash who are basically, you know, democrats. And, Biden supporters, I thought, oh, jeez. They're probably gonna do everything they can to ask, slight questions to make Biden look better. They're probably gonna fact check Trump.
Chris Talgo:This is probably gonna be really, really bad for him. I'll give CNN some credit. I think that most of the questions were pretty much down the middle. I think that they allowed both candidates to just say their piece. They didn't really chime in, so good for them on that.
Chris Talgo:I think also the fact that the microphones were, were turned off when the other one wasn't speaking, probably actually helped Donald Trump because they really put all the emphasis. It put all the emphasis on Joe Biden. Though that you know? And throughout the night, as I was looking at that split screen, whenever Joe Biden wasn't actually talking, he was just looking. He just looked like he was a deer in headlights.
Chris Talgo:That was with the exact thing that I texted to you guys because that was the best description I could come up with. He looked like a deer caught in headlights throughout the, you know, the the night. I thought his answers were were were pretty bad. I thought his first answer was just atrocious. Even the way that he walked out to the stage and greeted the the moderators, and I think he kind of greeted the audience, like you said, like, hey, folks, or something like that.
Chris Talgo:His his walk, just everything was so bad. So I think just right off the bat, the American people were like, wow. This is really what the president, you know, is is is is looking like these days? And, you know, the media I'm sure we'll get into this, so I don't wanna go too much into it now. But, you know, they did their best for the past three and a half years to really hide this, and, it looks like, you know, it it it just blew up in their face.
Chris Talgo:So Right. I know we're gonna talk a lot more about that in in, you know, in, the minutes ahead, so I don't wanna go too much into that. But I think that was one of the big things for me was, wow. You know, I thought CNN was gonna try their best to make him look as good as possible, and it seemed like they just didn't even try. And one last thing, after the, debate, I stayed up for another hour and watched some of the post debate analysis, and I watched the analysis on CNN.
Chris Talgo:They had a bunch of, I'd say Democrat, you know, leaning, pundits, and every single one of them was, I think, just shocked to the core. Whether it's Van Jones, whether it's David Axelrod, you know, just across the board, every single one of them, I think, was just shocked to the core that night. And now we've had 2 weeks, and it seems like it's not lighting up. It's actually getting worse. So that's kind of my just initial take.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Yeah. Jim, like I like I mentioned earlier on, you you were, like, primed to do an episode on Independence Day to talk about this. Yeah. Did you think that this was gonna, this whole story was just gonna keep just unfolding over the all the way to this when we had the opportunity to do this week's episode?
Donald Kendal:Because I I didn't. I thought, like, it's kinda stinks. We're gonna miss our chance to talk about this. But, man, it's just getting worse by the day.
Jim Lakely:Well, during during the debate, I was about as physically as far away from, you know, the DC political, swamp and all of the DC pundits and all that is possible, up in Alaska. And, my, a family member says, you know, hey. The the the debates is is come on. You wanna watch it? And I completely unplugged.
Jim Lakely:I mean, I'm out I'm out in the wilderness. I'm climbing mountains. I mean, it is I really enjoyed that mental break, but then it was near the end of the vacation. I go, ah, what the hell? Let's go ahead and check it out because we talked about the politics, you know, with family members up there anyway.
Jim Lakely:And then I was just we were all just gobsmacked. Fright, as as Justin said, right from the drop. Even even Joe Biden's gait as he walked across the stage was as if he was walking on ice with dress shoes and make sure he wasn't going to fall slip and fall over. But, you know, I think one thing to remember here is that that disaster of a debate, as Justin said, probably the biggest, and I think it's the title of this podcast, the biggest political mistake of all time was that debate. But it was team Biden's idea.
Jim Lakely:See, Joe was already flagging in the polls, and so the idea was we need a debate, we need to we need to change the narrative, we need to shake up the race. Mission accomplished, guys. Well done. You certainly accomplished, changing the narrative of this, of this presidential race, and you've managed to do something that I thought was absolutely impossible. You managed to keep Donald Trump's mouth shut for about 2 weeks.
Jim Lakely:He is out of the news. He is nowhere. It's all about you, Joe Biden, and your family and your obvious dementia. And, you know, I am I am thoroughly convinced of this, and others have speculated about it as well. I am thoroughly convinced that team Biden, in their ignorance and arrogance, fully expected Donald Trump to back out of this debate because they kept hinting on it.
Jim Lakely:Right? But then they started setting up all these rules that were that should have been deal breakers, they figured, for him. Well, we're gonna put it on CNN, the the network that hates you the most, even more than MSNBC. No problem. Just fine.
Jim Lakely:Jake Tapper is gonna be one of the moderators. He hates you more than anybody. Totally cool. Let's go. We're we're not gonna let you have an audience, you know, because we'd like how you you know, we we know that you love to play to the audience, so we're not gonna let you have one.
Jim Lakely:Fine. No problem. What else what else you got? Oh, we're gonna shut off your microphone when it's time for Biden to talk. Fine.
Jim Lakely:That's that's that's no problem. And in fact, they they they even could have told Donald Trump that we're gonna give the questions to Joe Biden in advance, which they might have done anyway. And he's still in this debate. So, because he knew what we all knew. You know, as Chris mentioned, you know, immediately after the debate, you know, I watched it online and, you know, I didn't watch CNN's reaction to it and MSNBC's reaction to it, but I was monitoring Twitter, and I could see what people were saying.
Jim Lakely:And their reaction was immediate and horrifying, And it's because they the listeners of this podcast and everybody on this podcast have observed Joe Biden's dementia accelerate for years. None of this surprised anybody who's been paying attention, basically anybody who has not relied on CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the wire services for their news. They knew all of this. It was a little shocking that they didn't get the the drug mixture correct in for the uppers and stimulants to make sure that he was as vibrant in this debate as he was for his state of the union address, but this was not a surprise to anybody, and, it's actually been revelatory, and we're gonna get into that a little deeper about how one half of this country apparently has no idea what is actually going on in this country and what has been going on with our elderly dementia patient patient president for, oh, no, three and a half years.
Donald Kendal:Right.
Chris Talgo:Hey, Donnie. I just gotta add a couple quick things. First of all, to me, the, the low point of the debate was when Joe Biden would have us believe he's a 6 handicap. I mean, give me a break. I've seen this guy call swing as a joke, total and utter joke.
Chris Talgo:Come on. I mean, how stupid and gullible do you think we are? But another thing that really surprised me was here's what here's what I was thinking. Oh, jeez. Joe Biden's the luckiest man in the world because the July 4th holiday is gonna, you know, come and kinda sweep away all this momentum.
Chris Talgo:Guess what happened? Because I've been really watching the news lately these past few days. It's not stopped. It is not stopped. If anything, it's increased.
Chris Talgo:I thought the dam was, you know, gonna hold. It's not holding. Every single day, CNN and MSNBC are are are calling more and more for him to drop out. You know? I mean, I know that, you know, the the George Clooney op ed and just all this stuff that's happening now you know, right now.
Chris Talgo:To to me, that's one of the the biggest, you know, surprises of all this. I thought that, you know, eventually, a couple days after, the Democrats, like they always do, would, you know, come together, go in lockstep and say, yes, sir. Clark candidate. He had a bad night. Don't worry about it.
Chris Talgo:He's great. Everything's great. You know, it was just one bad night. No. That's not happened.
Chris Talgo:So this is, like, unprecedented territory for someone who's been watching, you know, media coverage for so many years now. I've never seen anything remotely like this where you've got Democrat, politicians, pundits, you know, all across the board having this this this major, you know, civil war over over their candidate less than 40 days before the DNC convention Yeah. You know, in total here. It's like, wow. Wow.
Chris Talgo:This is just this is so entertaining to just watch. You have no idea.
Donald Kendal:It is. It is. And I I wanna get to the you know, what are they gonna do? Is he gonna drop out? All of that stuff.
Donald Kendal:But I I wanna spend some time just talking about, like, the what I describe as, like, the 180 degree turn that a large portion of the media has done in just since the literally in, like, the minutes after the debate, from just, like, saying, like, oh, this guy's terrible. He needs to drop out physically on, like, all of that sort of stuff. But, like, literally, minutes before the debate, it was just nothing for the past three and a half years, from the media other than just providing this guy cover. Every time that there was something that would come out, talking about or highlighting, you know, Joe Biden kind of losing it, The the media was just quick to to throw some articles in the Washington Post, the New York Times, or whatever saying, like, oh, no. He's actually doing fantastic.
Donald Kendal:And, Jim, you found an excellent, Twitter thread that kinda pulled a lot of this stuff together. This this this guy right here, I don't know who Drew Holden is. Maybe he's a great guy, whatever, but he did a lot of my work for me in this Twitter thread, which was basically this Twitter thread is a compilation of all of these different headlines from the media, like I said, providing cover for for Joe Biden over the years, especially in the past several months, if not few years. A lot of them, like, talked about, there there's one a little bit further down from the the wrap, kind of explaining Joe Biden's freeze up during an LA fundraiser. And they're, like, talking about how it's just like, oh, it's nothing to worry about, and they blame some of his, like, you know, on the inability to talk.
Donald Kendal:It's like, well, he's got a well known stutter. Right? The stutter card has been played a 1000000 times by the media. There's a a whole bunch of examples of just like, oh, no. You know, Biden's mental state is actually fine.
Donald Kendal:There's some doctors that checked him out. He's actually he's actually excellent. All of this sort of stuff. I wanna get to the cheap fakes, but I'll I'll save that for, for last. But, parroting all of this idea that he's no.
Donald Kendal:He's actually fine. No. He's actually fine. And then someone else on Twitter put together a just a masterful, compilation of all of the people using the same exact talking points in the media saying that Joe Biden's act actually sharp as attack. He's sharp as attack, everybody.
Donald Kendal:So, again, this is all pre debate, but the narrative that they were trying to spin for everybody was no. No. No. He's not losing it. He's sharp as attack.
Donald Kendal:So I don't wanna play the whole thing because there's literally, like, a 1000000 people saying this idea that he's sharp as attack, but we have to play a little bit of that clip. We have that one ready. Let's let's play some of that sharp as attack clip, please.
Jim Lakely:This version of Biden intellectually, analytically is the best Biden ever.
Partisan Hacks:He is sharp, intensely probing, and detail oriented and focused.
Joe Biden:For example, we have a 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 in America. I mean, 1,000,000,000,000 in America.
Partisan Hacks:This is a man who is sharp, who is on top of his game, who knows what's going on.
Jim Lakely:He's smart. He's on his game.
Partisan Hacks:His mental acuity is great.
Partisan Hacks:This is a very sharp president.
Donald Kendal:You could we could actually play a game where you try to guess who is saying it because I think that was Chuck Schumer just, prior to this. That was Nancy Pelosi. Let's keep playing it. Let's keep playing it.
Chris Talgo:Mayorkas was before that. Yeah. Yep.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Let's let's get it back in.
Partisan Hacks:Well, I've talked to it say he's he's as sharp as attack. He he's fired.
Jim Lakely:They say he's sharp.
Joe Biden:There's there's not a problem.
Chris Talgo:He was sharp. He was sharper than anyone I've spoken to.
Partisan Hacks:The president, is sharp and he is tireless. He is sharp.
Justin Haskins:As sharp as ever.
Partisan Hacks:And, he's he's he's fine. All this right wing propaganda that his mental acuity has declined is wrong.
Justin Haskins:His brain is good. He's still great. He has sharpened meetings.
Partisan Hacks:I believe the people who say that behind closed doors, Joe Biden remains sharp.
Jim Lakely:In meetings, Joe Biden is is sharp. He's
Justin Haskins:sharp. He's fit.
Partisan Hacks:There is nothing to these challenges, these suggestions that somehow he's not sharp. He's sharp as a tech.
Joe Biden:Thank you.
Donald Kendal:Alright. Let's just stop it there. There's literally, like, a1000000 more, but we'll stop it there. Some of the other headlines that were coming out, were, like, were, like, basically criticizing anyone that was trying to question Joe Biden's age and mental, you know, cognitive abilities as, being just ageist. Right?
Donald Kendal:Everyone's just being ageist. They're trying to weaponize his age. All of this is on founded. It's just right wing propaganda. And then the most recent thing, was this idea of cheap fakes.
Donald Kendal:And there was an episode, that we were actually gonna talk about this, and then we were I think we were short on time and we didn't. But now it's even more relevant than ever Because there was this idea that every one of these videos that comes out showing Biden just aimlessly, like, lost in, like, the front lawn of the White House or or just, like, you know, having to be, like, directed off stage by somebody. That was just some out of context clip that was just trying to, you know, right wing radicals or whatever. We're trying to, like, just selectively editing clips to make Joe Biden look bad. And I don't know where the term came from.
Donald Kendal:I'm not sure if it was from the White House.
Chris Talgo:It came from Morning Joe.
Donald Kendal:Oh, was it?
Chris Talgo:Morning Joe. Okay. Perfect. I watched it I watched it when they first started using that, and then KJP picked right up on it, then the whole media started running wild with it.
Donald Kendal:Okay. Right. Alright. So this was the idea of cheap fakes, which is a playoff of deep fakes, which is not what we use for any of our Biden clips that we play. But but it's a cheap fake, which is this idea that they're just selectively editing it to make Joe Biden look bad.
Donald Kendal:And, then what And then what followed, like Chris said, is just a litany of different articles, whether it's the New York Times, I think, the Washington Post, all talking about cheap fakes, the Associated Press. All of this was just like, you can't believe your eyes because these video clips are taken out of context. He's actually completely there cognitively. This is just a right wing hit job to make him look bad. So all of these narratives, were what we had pre debate for the last 3 plus years.
Donald Kendal:And then as soon as the debate happens, switches on a dime. 180 degrees. Now everybody is coming out basic basically, everybody is coming out saying, like, this guy is not fit for reelection. Like, he should drop out of his campaign. The, the post debates analysis, the the CNN panels, MSNBC panels, they were almost, like, dumbstruck of how terrible this was.
Donald Kendal:And they had just had to completely change the narrative on a dime because now the accusation that this is just an out of context clip, this is just a cheap fake, quote, unquote, that doesn't hold any water because we all sat there and watched this guy for 90 straight minutes unable to string together one coherent sentence. So, I mean, Justin, I wanna go back to you. I mean, is is that, like, as stark as I'm painting it to be? Because, seriously, to me, it was, like, 1 like, black and white, 180 degrees.
Justin Haskins:Yeah. This is real this is really simple. The media has no problem covering up Joe Biden's mental in incapacities. Okay? They they don't care about Joe Biden's fitness.
Justin Haskins:They don't care about how good of a guy he is or how corrupt he is or anything else. Joe Biden is a tool. He's a tool to accomplish the purposes of the left, and and the left includes the mainstream media, much of the mainstream media. And so they have no problem with covering all that up. They have no problem with the corruption.
Justin Haskins:No problem with the the scandals and all of the rest of it. It doesn't matter to them at all. What matters is the ends justify the means. So up until the moment of that debate, they made a calculation that said, we think we can get away with painting this as just a right wing conspiracy. Joe Biden is actually sharp as attack, sharp as attack, over and over and over again, and people will buy it at least enough that we think because they hate Donald Trump so much, they'll vote for Joe Biden, and therefore, you know, it's worth it.
Justin Haskins:Right? But the debate happened, and then they realized this guy's probably gonna lose. Because millions and millions and millions of people saw this. Tens of millions of people saw this. Tens of millions more will see the clips afterwards.
Justin Haskins:It's so obvious. This is an uncut clip. This is on CNN. That's on our side. Donald Trump is not interrupting him all the time, so you can't blame him for it.
Justin Haskins:It just is Joe Biden absolutely looking like, a a guy who escaped as an assisted living facility and is wandering around the mall, and he found his way into a presidential debate. That's what it looks like. And we got we can't hide that. So as soon as they realize this guy is no longer a useful functionary for us to accomplish our goals, it's time to kick him to the curb. So how do we do that?
Justin Haskins:We have to because he's not gonna wanna do it, so we're gonna have to push him out. We're gonna have to throw him out. And the only way we can do that is, to by well, not the only way, but one of the only ways is by making life so miserable for him, giving him and the administration the the the idea that there's no conceivable way they can win because even their own side is turning against them, that he will voluntarily choose to drop out. And we have to do it right now because the convention is coming up soon, and we have to do it now. If we if we're gonna make the switch, it's gotta be immediate.
Justin Haskins:And so this was just so obviously, and and so and but now the media has to explain why all of a sudden they're finding out about it when the right has been saying this for years. So what they did is make it sound like, oh, this is the first time we've ever heard of this. So, you know, other than right wing conspiracy blogs and, you know, stupid radio shows and stuff, like, oh, we we had no idea. We've never seen him like this before. But, of course, they all had seen him like this before a 1000000 times.
Justin Haskins:And so they didn't care. I'm gonna read you one clip, and then we can move on from here. I'm gonna read you just one quote from Joe Biden that should have and if the media wasn't constantly lying to you because this is the best example in history, this whole Joe Biden saga, in history of how obvious it is that the media is constantly lying to people. Because this is like a it's just a straightforward thing. It's not like a, well, the taxes you know, does raising taxes really work or, you know, all the other things that you can kinda it could go either way or liberals have a certain this isn't the it's just really straightforward.
Justin Haskins:Joe Biden is mentally incompetent. K. We all know that. Okay? And they lied and lied and lied, and now they're caught in their lie, and now they immediately change.
Justin Haskins:It's the perfect example, but I'm gonna read you one quote. This is from 2017, 7 years ago. Joe Biden said this, at a campaign of at a at a an event where he was, he was in his home the one sort of his hometown, Wilmington, Delaware. They're naming a pool after him. Okay?
Donald Kendal:That's so Jack.
Justin Haskins:Must be a lifeguard at the pool. This is the whole corn pop thing and all of that crazy stuff. Right? But this one quote from that event should have killed his campaign, should should have killed his political career, should never have been allowed to run for president, and it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, the media knew all this time how screwed up this guy is. This is the quote.
Justin Haskins:And by the way, you know, I sit on the stand. He's talking about sitting on the stand as a lifeguard. And it's getting hot. And I've got hairy legs that turn that that that that, blonde in the sun. And the kids used to come up and reach in the pool and rub my leg down so it was straight and watch the hair come back up again.
Justin Haskins:They'd look at it. So I learned about roaches. I learned about kids jumping on my lap, and I've loved kids jumping on my lap, end quote. Now you tell me how that quote could be said by someone running for president and anyone well, let that that anyone who says that could could win could win a nomination, could win the presidency. They have all of the media pouring through.
Justin Haskins:They knew about that. They knew about that clip. It's all over the Internet. How is that possible? That is only said by someone who is who is not only just, like, a weirdo, which we we there's plenty of other reasons to think he's he's a weirdo, especially with kids.
Justin Haskins:But on top of that, like, only someone who's losing their mind would say something like that at a public event. I don't care how weird you are. You're a politician who's been in in in Washington for 50 years or whatever, 40 years, and you know not to talk about kids. You don't you don't realize you probably shouldn't tell people that you like it when kids jump on your lap and rub your hairy legs at the pool?
Donald Kendal:You don't know that?
Justin Haskins:I mean, this is just it is so outrageous and absurd, and every single American
Joe Biden:should
Justin Haskins:be offended to their core that the media lied to them for months months years about this man's mental fitness. And if you don't watch, you know, the Blaze and Fox News and the in the tank podcast and things like that, you may not know it. But you now know it, and you now can go back and look and see the endless barrage of clips and information proving this point. And you now should know the media will say literally anything to you to get you to do what it wants. They are liars, and it's all propaganda.
Justin Haskins:And this how could how could anything be a better case of it than this? It's just unbelievable. And that should be the biggest takeaway, honestly, of this entire saga is you cannot believe what the mainstream media tells you.
Donald Kendal:Well and that's and that's kinda what I wanna focus on. Chris, I'm gonna go to you next. But, in my haste to talk about all this, I didn't do my normal intro stuff where I talk about supporting the show and all of that. But one thing that I was reminded with the little banner that came up on our screen is that YouTube did demonetize us, because, you know, we're not allowed to talk about certain things on their platform or something like that. So now we can't, you know, raise any money or get any sort of support from you guys with the super chats.
Donald Kendal:We've been demonetized. So if you do wanna help out the show, we've got, like, almost a record high watching right now across all the different platforms that we're streaming on. You can help us out by going to heartland.org/inthetank, and you can make a donation through there that specifically supports the show. It's actually better than doing it through the super chat functionality of YouTube because, YouTube takes, like, 30% of all of that. So if you wanna support the show, you can go to heartland.org/inthetank.
Donald Kendal:But, Chris, when I was proposing that we talk about all of this stuff on on this week's episode, the one thing that I really wanted to focus on was just basically the journalistic malpractice. Right? Because as as Justin said, it's like, how how can we how can we watch what they were saying pre the debate, comparing that to what they're now saying after the debate, and and just think that there's some sort of, like, non hypocrisy going on. Like, are they just willingly ignorant? Were they seriously blind to reality here?
Donald Kendal:Like, what what's what's going on in your opinion?
Chris Talgo:No. It's Justin made it very clear. The the entire mainstream media knew that Joe Biden was not fit for office, you know, well before 2020, and he they know he's definitely not fit for office now. Donnie, one thing I just do wanna go back and and, state. You know, everyone's talking about, oh, he he needs to drop out because, you know, he can't campaign, and there's no way he can serve for more years.
Chris Talgo:How about the next 6 months? How about that? He should step down. The 25th amendment should have been invoked, you know, years ago because he's not currently capable of serving as president of the United States. Like Justin said, the leader of the free world.
Chris Talgo:So just just gotta get that out first. Chuck Todd, who, you know, is on, meet the press, m s or NBC News, He came out, I believe it was yesterday, and said that in 2022, 2 years ago, he had a conversation with a senior level cabinet member who at that point in time told him Joe Biden's not fit for office. These cabinet meetings are not going well. He's doesn't have, you know, he he doesn't understand the issues and all this kind of stuff. Why did Chuck Todd wait 2 years for that to come out?
Chris Talgo:Chuck Todd is not the only one who's been doing this. There's been more and more examples of this coming out from the mainstream media. And, you know, it's it's just it's fascinating, and it's, you know, interesting to watch how all of a sudden now all these leaks are pouring out years after the fact. Chuck Todd should have told the American people right then and there. The day that that senior level cabinet official told him that Joe Biden is not fit to be the president, he should have made that the lead story on meet the press.
Chris Talgo:He didn't. He didn't because he wanted to hide it from the American people, because he felt that, like like everyone else in the mainstream media, that, they could just, you know, hide this. They felt I I think that they felt that they could do another 2020 basement campaign and that Biden could somehow, someway, just ride this out and beat Trump. But now the polls are showing and the post debate polls are really, really bad. I mean, we're talking 80% of registered voters saying, no.
Chris Talgo:He can't run. 72% saying, no. He's not fit for office. 67% in another poll saying, no. He's not you know, he he shouldn't be, president right now.
Chris Talgo:And then when you look at swing states, Trump is killing him in swing states. Trump is beating him in some of the congressional districts in New York. Virginia's up for grabs. Minnesota's up for grabs. New Hampshire's up for grabs.
Chris Talgo:The only reason why the mainstream media is doing what they're doing is because they know that Joe Biden cannot defeat Donald Trump. That's it. End of story. That is all this is about. This is not about they don't agree with Joe Biden's policies or anything like that.
Chris Talgo:It's about all they care about is defeating Donald Trump, and now they are scared out of their minds that Joe Biden is going to stay in the race or that there's gonna be just some sort of thing that's gonna happen where Donald Trump is gonna emerge victorious. And that that to them is the ultimate thing that they want to avoid. But it looks at this it looks like at this point in time, that's unavoidable. And that's why now I think they're really, like, angry and upset and frustrated with Joe Biden. Because if you really watch it closely, it's not that they have sympathy towards him.
Chris Talgo:It's not that they're saying, hey. You did a great job. You you you you were the bridge to the future. Now please, you know, like like, go out, you know, with some grace. It's the knives are out.
Justin Haskins:Right.
Chris Talgo:They are circling like sharks, and, you know, Biden is I think he's overwhelmed, and it's just so it's it's it's gonna be very interesting over the next couple weeks in particular because at a certain point, they're gonna run out of time. The Democrat National Convention is less than 40 days away. If he doesn't drop out in the next 10 days or so, I don't understand how that might like, just mechanically, they can do this.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I I wanna talk about all of that. I wanna talk about all that next and what all of this means and going forward, but I can't I can't drop the media story, the media angle to this without talking, to Jim about it first because I mean, Jim, does this not, like, this does not prove what we've been talking about with the media, whether it comes to climate change or, you know, a number of COVID stories or election integrity or all this stuff or, like, the narratives of the mainstream corporate media are trying to push. Just like, how could you possibly take their word for it after they sold us this bill of lies for years at least, and then all of a sudden, as soon as it's, like, undeniable, they changed their tune 180 degrees. What are your what are your thoughts on all of this?
Jim Lakely:It's because they got caught in the big lie. Can I call this can we call this the big lie? The the fact that the media has known about this the entire time and has been trying to keep it quiet? Our our our leg our corrupt legacy media is not in the business of informing the American people and voters as to what's going on in the Biden White House. They are in the business of running interference and promoting propaganda in service of the White House and the Democratic Party.
Jim Lakely:And they still, you know, what's the I think it was Dave Burge on Twitter. Basically, the left hollows out every esteemed institution, kills it, and then wears wears it like a skin suit so that they are still respected. That is the state of modern American journalism today, especially in Washington DC. They are aware that as questioners in a in a press conference, and this will happen tonight. I guarantee you this.
Jim Lakely:And they've shown it. They've shown pictures on TV, or I've seen pictures on social media of Joe Biden holding a card with the name and how to say it phonetically, and the picture of the journalist he's going to call on in his press conference, and the question the person is going to ask. Now I worked for the Washington Times and especially on foreign trips. One, I think it was either a NATO summit overseas or it was I think it was in Glenn Eagles, the NATO summit overseas. And I was told by the by the press, by Scott McClellan at the time.
Jim Lakely:He's like, by the way, because it's you know, when you're doing a foreign visit, you know, joint press conferences, how this usually happens, or in this case, actually was a solo press conference. There's limited time. It's not like you're in the you're in the, you know, the briefing room where you could spend a couple hours doing this. There's only gonna be time for a few questions. And I was told by the White House, they're gonna call on you, Jim, today.
Jim Lakely:They're gonna go through the the wire services. They're gonna go to the cable networks, so then they're gonna call on you. They never asked me what I was gonna ask him. That is not the way it's supposed to work. But in this White House, they were giving the the the president of United States the questions ahead of time, way ahead of time, hours ahead of time.
Jim Lakely:And then also on that card, obviously, was the answer he was supposed to give to that question by the supposed objective for the state media that is supposed to be informing the country. And instead, our 4th Estate corrupt legacy media has been misinforming the country. And on top of that, they call telling the truth misinformation and disinformation and cheer on and collaborate with social media companies to keep the truth from being stated. That is the state of our media today, and all of them knew this before the debate. The reason there was a look of panic in their eyes is because everybody else could see it plainly now too.
Jim Lakely:Everybody listening to this podcast, everybody on the right who who who actually seeks out and judges for themselves what is reliable media and what isn't, knew this a long time ago, and so did they. They were horrified because they could not keep up the big lie anymore. It was too exposed, and that is why they are so mad. Because you don't even have to be that smart to just look at this and think there's only one of 2 things going on. Either the media are all all liars or they're morons.
Jim Lakely:Now I love to embrace the power of and. I think they're they're liars and they're morons. But more to the point, they are lying to you, and that's why they're so upset because they oh my god. They think they're so smart. They think they're so smart, and they could not handle the idea of the American public thinking they're moronic for not noticing that the president of United States is shuffling around like a nursing home patient and can't get a single coherent sentence, let alone a coherent thought out of his gaping maw.
Jim Lakely:No. They will not be thought of as morons. So they're starting to admit, you know, I guess maybe we did know this stuff. You're seeing these things leaked a a little bit here and there. So they're they've settled on, it's okay if you think we're liars.
Jim Lakely:And they've and they've they've settled on that because they know that those die hard viewers of CNN and MSNBC and NPR are going to they want to be lied to. And so they're just kinda come right back into the fold, and all the lying is going to continue, at least as far as Biden is concerned until they can get him out of there. I mean, this is the only way the media was forced to report the truth about this White House was because of that debate. If that debate didn't happen, if Donald Trump dropped out, we would still have a doddering president who should not be president, let alone running for office. You can't just say, I'm not gonna run for office, but I'll still be president until, January 2025.
Jim Lakely:That's not how it works, guys. If he can't run for president, he can't be president. And the only reason any of this is happening is because Donald Trump did not take their bait, was not dumb enough to back out of the debate because he knew this would be the greatest exposure of not just his opponent in the presidential race, but of our utterly corrupt and lying media. It's a it's toward a force of smart political, positioning.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I mean, that that's gotta be, like, the biggest takeaway. The biggest, like, nonpolitical takeaway from this whole fiasco. It's just like, how could we possibly trust the mainstream corporate media after this? Like, how can we?
Donald Kendal:How possibly can we? So now, now in the aftermath of the of the debate, as Chris was saying, it's like the knives are out. All the big establishment newspapers came out with op eds. They're, you know, editorial whatever came out with, like, articles talking about how now is the time for Biden to drop out. The New York Times said it.
Donald Kendal:The Washington Post said it. The Atlantic Journal Constitution said it. Paul Krugman, which is like the biggest, like, left chill out there, he had an article being, like, Biden's the best president of my adult life, but he needs to step down. And then there's, like, a whole list of, different, like, celebrities that have come out, pretty notable celebrities that have come out. John Stewart, Michael Moore, Rob Reiner, Stephen King, half of the people on The View, all of these people were saying, like, yeah, I think it's about time for him to drop out.
Donald Kendal:George Clooney, who just threw, like, a $28,000,000, fundraiser for Joe Biden, like, 3 weeks ago, came out with a with an op ed of his own, I think, in the New York Times where he was saying that Biden's gotta drop out. There was a a very interesting quote from that article where it says it's devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with 3 weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe big effing deal Biden of 2010. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. The tamp has broken. I mean, this is just it it's just crazy how much, like, the the the the curtain has been lifted.
Donald Kendal:The veil is lifted. Everyone sees it, and we're all saying what we should have been saying for a while now. But, Justin, the the thing that's so confusing to me is I don't think I have ever experienced the left so fractured when it comes to this. Usually, it's just like whatever the talking point is, whatever the narrative is, everyone falls in line. Right?
Donald Kendal:Even if we all see this, everyone's gonna pair it the same White House talking points of, oh, he just had an off night. Oh, he just had a cold. He's gonna be better next time. Nothing to see here, folks. Let's keep marching towards 2024, and that's not the case.
Donald Kendal:So why isn't that the case? That this is what's confusing me so much in the past couple of weeks.
Justin Haskins:Because the the motivation behind all those decisions is to win. It's about power. It's about winning power or keeping power. And in this case, they don't think he can win. It it's just it's just a purely you know, it's not personal, Joe.
Justin Haskins:It's not personal. They don't hate you because of your corruption or your personality or that you were accused of sexual assault or all of your many scandals and the constant lying and the plagiarism. Like, it's it's nothing to do with that.
Partisan Hacks:It's not personal.
Justin Haskins:You are no longer useful to them. That's what this is about. This is business. You're no longer useful. You can't win.
Justin Haskins:That's the mindset. They think they're pretty sure. They're not a 100% sure. They're pretty sure you can't win. And so you're no longer useful to them.
Justin Haskins:And, ultimately, these relationships are always transactional for the left. And in politics in general, a lot of times, they are transactional relationships. What can you do for us? And in this case, Joe Biden can't do much for anybody other than his other than his, you know, money grubbing family and his, you know, his power hungry wife. Like, other than them, he really can't do much for anybody anymore.
Justin Haskins:But And so so we're at so they gotta get rid of him. It's just as simple as that.
Donald Kendal:So do you think that this is, like, an like a a legitimate, like, civil war, like, in the Democratic Party where it's just like you've got the most of the establishment saying, like, yeah, He's gotta get out, and then there's just, like, the Biden team that's, like, stubbornly not getting out. Is that is that what I'm supposed to believe here?
Justin Haskins:Well, I mean, 11,000%. Well, I mean, 1,000%. And it's not a war because they think it's it's it's it's based entirely around winning. Like, there's a group of people in the Democratic party say who are saying quietly, as George Clooney noted in that article, actually, that he talked to a bunch of members of congress. Why why George Clooney is is has all this access to people is a totally different story.
Justin Haskins:But he's talked to all these members of congress, and they're all quietly telling him, Democrats, he can't win. Like, this is a disaster. But they're not publicly saying it, but the point is this. The point is this. The war is based around some people in the party like John Fetterman, people like that, are set in AOC.
Justin Haskins:We oh, AOC has come out in support of Joe Biden. John Fetterman out in support of Joe Biden. AOC doesn't like Joe Biden. Not really. Okay?
Justin Haskins:Why is she doing it? Because in her mind, she thinks this is the best chance of winning. Then you've got a bunch of people on the other side who are telling him New York Times editorial board, Washington Post, New York Magazine, like, all these other things who are saying, Joe's gotta go. George Clooney, and it's because they think he can't win. So the whole thing is a it's it's, yeah, it's a civil war, but it's a civil war based around some people think he's still the best chance of winning.
Justin Haskins:Other people think probably because it's just too late in the game. Other people think he's not he's gonna cost them the election, and it's that's the war. And, they're trying to push him out. I said this I said this, and I was a 1000% right. When the New York Times published that op ed initially, it like, the next day after the debate or soon after that, couple days later, saying Joe needs to drop out.
Justin Haskins:I sent a message to, to you, Donnie, to a bunch of people in at at Heartland saying, this must be part of an organized effort to get rid of him.
Chris Talgo:Sure.
Justin Haskins:It was like the first major shot against him, but my whole argument was the New York Times editorial board does not go rogue. The left doesn't operate that way. Right. So there has to be a whole group of people on the left, establishment types, people who are hanging out with the New York Times editorial board who who are saying, okay. We're all in agreement.
Justin Haskins:Right? We're gonna kill him politically. Like, we're gonna get rid of him. Politically, he's gone. Right?
Justin Haskins:And everyone there says, yep. We're gonna have to push him out. And then it was one op ed, one news article, one series of video clips after another on CNN showing Joe Biden being incompetent and needs to and that was all the part a clear, coordinated campaign to push him out. And then, the the people who kinda rally to his side are kinda trying to push back against that, and their main argument is basically, like, he's still the best chance of winning probably, so we gotta do it. But but, ultimately, it's a coordinated attack on his presidency being in office, and it's based entirely around that one thing.
Justin Haskins:Can he win or can't he win? And the really crazy thing about this, by the way, is if you just think about the legacy of Joe Biden Oh, yeah. If Joe Biden stays in this race and loses Oh, yeah. He will be forever crucified by his own side. Forget about the right.
Justin Haskins:They will blame him forever, and his whole degenerate family and all the rest of them will be ostracized from the Democratic party. They will be treated as, like, lepers. Okay? They are the worst people in the history of the universe. They did this to us.
Justin Haskins:They because he refused to drop out, and he will be destroyed forever. This is the biggest gamble politically of all time, him choosing to stay in. And and I can't in a way I am shocked that he's doing it, at least that's what it seems like so far, because of what the ramifications will be for him and his legacy going forward if he if he loses to Trump.
Donald Kendal:No no doubt. Chris, I'm gonna go to you next. But, where we are still monetized, we aren't on YouTube, but where we are still monetized is on Rumble, and we just got a 100 dollar donation from Soaring Eagle saying hats off to the In The Tank crew. Thank you so much, Soaring Eagle. And for all of those people that are watching on YouTube, like I said, heartland.org/inthetankpodcast.
Donald Kendal:You can go in or I think it's just in the tank in the tank. Heartland.org/inthetank if you wanna support the show that way. But, Chris, I mean, I don't know. It's still it's still hard for me to kind of understand this because like Justin said, if the New York Times comes out, we're gonna we're gonna, you know, fire the salvo against the the the Biden campaign by saying in the big New York Times, the paper of record, all of that sort of stuff that Joe Biden needs to drop out. That's part of some just, like, coordinated, campaign from all of these other people, which is what it seems like because it was almost simultaneous that we saw a whole bunch of other articles coming across, mainstream media sources saying the same thing.
Donald Kendal:All of these celebrities, all of these people, unable to deny the reality of what we all witnessed for 90 minutes on that fateful debate night, but they don't have the power to really just kind of, like, push Joe Biden out. Joe Biden is the stick in the mud because I'll tell you what, if this is all about winning the election, what the worst strategy is going into the election is having weeks of inter party fight going on where we can't decide which direction we're going. Are we going the Joe Biden route? Are we going a different route? So it's like they feels like they have to figure it out.
Donald Kendal:So is it really just Joe Biden being stubborn Joe and, like, the party really having an inability to, like, force him out in some way or another? What are your thoughts?
Chris Talgo:I absolutely think that. And, you know, like Justin was saying, there is a lot of chatter that behind the scenes, high ranking Democrats, you know, in the senate, in the house of representatives are saying he's gotta go. But then, unfortunately, when they go on some of these TV shows, they kinda, you know, it's like they're they're they're more or less cagey. I think Nancy Pelosi's comments yesterday were pretty interesting because in first, after the debate, she came and said, no. He's the guy.
Chris Talgo:He's gonna remain the guy. Yesterday, she made it seem as and she said it, like, in such a politically savvy way of, you know, when he makes his decision. Nancy, he already made his decision. He doubled down he doubled down literally 5 minutes after the debate saying, I don't care. I'm I'm still running, and he's double downs many times after.
Chris Talgo:She knows that, but she's still trying to give him an out. So I think they're trying to give him this this off ramp to say, hey. After a couple weeks, you know, I finally come to the conclusion, but I don't think he's gonna do that. I don't think Joe Biden's gonna step away. Nothing he has shown, not in any way whatsoever, or jail or Hunter or the Biden team, has shown that he's willing to even entertain dropping out of this race.
Chris Talgo:So the delegates are pledged to him. He earned those delegates. This is the way that the Democrat party wanted it to be. They wanted Joe Biden to be the, nominee again. There were plenty of Democrats in 2023 who were saying, hey.
Chris Talgo:Maybe we should have an open primary. Maybe we should, you know, replace him at the top of the ticket. The party bigwig said no, and now they're stuck with him. But now they're trying to pretend like, oh, darn. If you need to go into a smoke filled room and, make some decision, it would be so ironic if they did that because this is the same party that keeps telling us we're the party of democracy.
Chris Talgo:We're the party of, you know, respecting the voters. Alright. Primary voters already voted. This is who they voted for. You have to respect that vote.
Chris Talgo:So it'd be also I think it'd be just like a slap, you know, in the face to all the primary voters who have said, this is the guy we want. So you you chose him. You gotta stick with him. You know? It's it's it's that that kind of a mentality for me.
Chris Talgo:But I don't I I don't think I don't think Joe Biden's gonna willingly step down. Now, Donnie, you know, I've been we've been talking about this over the past week or so. Would not surprise me if, things are happening behind the scenes where they're saying, hey, Joe. If you don't step out, then, Hunter might, you know, get in big trouble, and we might actually
Jim Lakely:have to
Chris Talgo:go after the big guy. Also, there's speculation that, you know, the Bidens are broke. Hunter is very broke. He had to borrow $5,000,000 to pay his tax debt from that sugar daddy brother kinda guy, whatever, you know, weird stuff. So, apparently, there was speculation that, hey.
Chris Talgo:They just say, hey. You step down. We take care of the family. 100,000,000 on our payday. Big presidential library.
Chris Talgo:You guys are set for life, and then he does. However, you know, Jill Biden really likes power. She did a Vogue, yeah, a Vogue interview in which she was wearing a $5,200 Ralph Lauren coat, talk about being out of touch, right after the debate. And, one of the quotes that really stood out to me was she was talking about how when she's in the presidential limousine and they're going, you know, to to places, how she just said there's nothing like the feeling of watching these these people have to get off the highway so that we can come through. That is such a telling quote.
Chris Talgo:That is really telling. That's that that's who Jill Biden is. She wants her husband there because she also likes the rewards of being in office. So to me, the this is this is but, Donnie, this is part and parcel for the Bidens. The Bidens and Joe Biden in particular has put his career above the country time and time again.
Chris Talgo:So why why would he all of a sudden at this stage of his life say, hey. I'm gonna do the I'm gonna do the right thing, do the patriotic thing, do the thing that's best for the country, and step down. I don't think that's in his bones. I don't think he's capable of doing that. Oh
Donald Kendal:oh, hang on. Hang on. We got exclusive exclusive footage of, of, George Clooney talking to Joe Biden and trying to trying to convince him to take the right track. If we have that do we have that queued up? I think we we can play this video.
Donald Kendal:Let's go ahead and play it.
Partisan Hacks:Chris that we're here with better news. The fact is that you and I are sitting here today because this will be your last week of employment. This is not an assessment of your productivity. You're gonna try not to take this personally.
Joe Biden:Oh, I just had a bad night.
Donald Kendal:Oh, I'm sorry, Joe. I'm sorry, Joe. Jim, I don't know. It's
Chris Talgo:hard to buy. Shame on you.
Donald Kendal:Yeah, that's that's a cheap thing.
Jim Lakely:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Here we are. Did you get cheap fakes? Yeah.
Joe Biden:Yeah. Yes, man.
Donald Kendal:That was a cheap thing. Jim, I don't know. It's it's still hard for me to buy. Like, I swear the the amount of influence and power wielded by, you know, the the Democratic party and, the the whole media structure or whatever, it's all stopped by some, like, doddering old man saying, oh, I actually wanna run for president still. Like, really?
Donald Kendal:That's what's stopping them? That's what's causing all of this chaos that's just, like, blowing up in the face of the entire Democratic party over the past 2 weeks? That's seriously what's stopping all of this from happening?
Jim Lakely:Well, a lot of it also is is money and the senate and house races. Yeah. And so yeah. I mean, I used to I also used to cover Capitol Hill and every week, when in session, each of the parties, they have a caucus lunch and it's usually they have speakers and they, you know, they're all together in the same room and they, they just talk about what's going on, political strategies, things they have to do to get things done together as a caucus. And I saw a report that the, they met on Tuesday.
Jim Lakely:Democratic caucus was on Tuesday on Capitol Hill, and that the it was it was a lot of yelling. There was a lot of long faces. I wouldn't have been surprised if there was a tear or 2, but the, but when they come out of the caucus room, you know, they have to walk past reporters and so they have to ask them questions and, you know, the mood was described as funereal, because they see, you know, you have the media polls and stuff, but each of these members of congress and and members of the senate, you know, know what their internal polling shows. They know that that Joe Biden is going to be a huge drag on the ticket, and they're actually really worried that they could lose the senate, which they have a, you know, it's tied, but they have the tie breaking vote. And they're going to lose more seats in the house, which they thought they were gaining on in the last few sessions.
Jim Lakely:And so they know the reality of the situation, and that's where and why the panic continues to grow. The NBC News reported just today that donations are drying up, especially among big donors. And so that's where that, op ed by George Clooney, which was published with the permission of his good buddy, Barack Obama. There is no way George Clooney would risk his friendship with Barack Obama by writing an op ed in the biggest newspaper in the country, read by every Democrat in America and respected by them foolishly without Barack Obama's express consent. And in fact, I just thought Rosette?
Justin Haskins:You're speculating.
Jim Lakely:No. Well, so is the Biden campaign. I just saw a report as I was clicking around during this podcast that the Biden team is saying to reporters that they believe Barack Obama is behind this. And I, you know, like I said, I don't I I don't doubt that, whatsoever. And the Washington ports and the Washington post is now even reporting that, democratic leaders and union leaders are, expressing their worry, you know, out in the open.
Jim Lakely:It said in a closed door meeting on Wednesday, some of the country's union leaders, said Americans doubts about Biden's ability do the job were damaging his candidacy and repeatedly asked by Biden campaign officials for their plan to defeat Donald Trump. You you know what their plan was to defeat Donald Trump? Put him in jail. That was it. That was pretty much their entire plan to beat Donald Trump.
Jim Lakely:Let the media continue to pound him, say the word convicted felon, as many times as you can in one media appearance, and just make it so that he's in jail, and there's no way the American people would elect a man from jail to be president. But that blew up in their face. He's not be gonna be in jail before election day, and he won't be in jail, I believe, now after election day either. And so now they're stuck, and it's even worse than that. Not only did they not put Donald Trump in jail, now their candidate has been exposed as a nursing home patient who, you know, should only be choosing which, you know, kind of pudding he's going to have with lunch.
Jim Lakely:Not whether or not, we are going to be going to war somewhere or, whether we should have a nuclear response to something that may happen from North Korea or Russia or China or elsewhere. So they're they're stuck, and even, you know, this is I've read something else here too. Even a majority of senior campaign staff on Biden's campaign are despondent, and they don't even see a path forward to beat Donald Trump either. And so, you know, it it is a little delicious to watch this political and and this political crisis of their own making completely blow up in their faces, the media's faces, the left's faces, and I have not experienced a media month this satisfying, I don't think ever, and I just hope it continues.
Chris Talgo:Hey. Real real quick on the, the the funding donor whole angle. So, first of all, Joe Biden has said that the elites of the Democrat party don't want him and that he's gonna do a run run without them. He's also said that he is gonna run without the big donors because, Jim, you're spot on. The heiress to Disney, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and a bunch of other big, big donors said, we're not gonna give you a penny, you know, for your, campaign from here on out.
Chris Talgo:Even if Joe Biden were to, step aside, Kamala Harris would be the only one who could inherit his, his, you know, $100,000,000, campaign war chest. You could not just transfer those funds to Gavin Newsom or Michelle Whitmer or who or whom I prefer, Gretchen Whitmer, excuse me, or Michelle Obama. You you you couldn't do that. So once again, they're they're between a rock and a hard place. If it's not Joe, then it's gotta be Kamala.
Chris Talgo:And if they do sidestep Kamala, can you imagine the fur that's gonna be, you know, in in in in the country, especially among black women? I think that they would never let that that that fly. So that's just another, you know, like, flying the ointment here that they've got to deal with. I mean, this is not an easy thing. You know, we are in totally unprecedented territory.
Chris Talgo:Only twice has the sitting president decided not to run, you know, at a late stage. Truman and LBJ, both of them did it with more than a 150 days before the DNC convention. We're 40 days away.
Donald Kendal:Chris or or everyone, I guess. I wanna I wanna end with just, because we're already well over time here, but I wanna end with just what our speculation is. Whether or not we think he's gonna be the candidate, how the next several months are gonna play out, what do you foresee? Chris, I wanna start with you. How how how does this go down?
Chris Talgo:Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. Jeez.
Chris Talgo:I mean, it's worth we are in such a unprecedented territory. It's hard for me to even, like, you know, make an educated guess. I mean, if I think if it were right now, the way things stand, I think Biden's going to stay in the race. I think that Jill and Hunter are just gonna, you know, really, really convince him to just stay in this thing. I think he loses, and I think Trump wins.
Chris Talgo:And I think that it's a landslide. I think that it also those down ballot races go to, Trump.
Donald Kendal:Well, there there was also because you talked about some of the, you know, the the donations and all of that and how does that work. But, like, how about, like, literally printing the ballots for the election? Like, it hasn't that been done in certain states? Like, how are they gonna just, like, change it? You know?
Chris Talgo:That that that that's a whole another thing that they that they would have to wrestle with, especially because of early voting. Some of these states are gonna be early voting 5 weeks before the election. So that's a whole another thing.
Justin Haskins:Well yeah. But, technically, go ahead. Sorry. No.
Donald Kendal:No. Go to so Chris thinks he's gonna stay in and lose badly. Justin, we'll go to you next. Whatever your thoughts are, what you're about to say, and then your speculation of how this is gonna play out. And I will remind I will remind you all as I'm asking you this, that Joe Biden staying in the race means that he's doing it without the help, of the mainstream media or that the mainstream media has to just swallow all the words that they've spouted over the past 2 2 weeks and actually support the guy.
Donald Kendal:So go ahead, Justin.
Justin Haskins:Okay. So, I I guess my question is and and Chris and before I answer, I I think Chris and, Jim might might know the answer to this question. I haven't followed the details of this quite as closely as they have. But before the convention, obviously, theoretically, if Joe Biden were to just choose to drop out before the convention, then Kamala Harris could or anyone, theoretically, could be named the candidate because, officially, they haven't actually named the candidate yet. So I don't think they would be in any kind of trouble with the ballots and states and stuff like that.
Justin Haskins:I think that would get more complicated after the convention. I could be wrong. And if I am, then Chris and Jim should tell me I'm wrong. But I I think I think that's the way it would work. The money part, Chris is exactly right, which seems to suggest that Kamala Harris has to be the person because she could use all of the money, from their campaign war chest that they've built up.
Justin Haskins:So it makes sense that she would be the person if he's going to drop out. So, assuming that it's easier to replace him before the convention. If I'm wrong about that, someone needs to tell me. But assuming it's easier to replace him before the convention rather than after, I would say that my gut my gut tells me he's gonna, at the last minute, drop out. I think it's, like, 5149.
Justin Haskins:Okay? So I'm not saying I'm I feel super confident about this. But 51%, 49%, I say, at the last minute before the convention, he drops out voluntarily because he was pressured behind the scenes. Probably, the screws really turned tightly on him related to the corruption and and all of that stuff that the media has just ran cover for, for him for over 3 years now. You know, we have the Hunter Biden laptop from hell stuff.
Justin Haskins:We've got all kind the payments of the big man, all that stuff. I think they turn the screws on him. They force him to voluntarily resign right before the convention. Kamala Harris is named the candidate. It doesn't really matter who the VP is at that point.
Justin Haskins:And, Kamala is the candidate. She probably loses to Donald Trump. I think I think Trump is looking like highly likely he's going to win at this point. Like, 80% chance, I would say. And, the whole thing gets blamed on Joe Biden, being too old, and that's the general tenor of how things go.
Justin Haskins:I think the 49% chance is that Biden just stays in. They ride it all the way till the end. He loses badly, and he is obliterated in the history books forever. And and the but, you know but I will I will say this. One really interesting thing to think about is and I don't know.
Justin Haskins:I'm not saying this is the case at all, but there is a really interesting case to be made that the media would benefit far more, and the Democrats, arguably, would benefit far more from Joe Biden losing and Trump being the candidate than they would with Trump, losing another 4 years of this nonsense. I mean, really, when you think about it, long term, like, if you're looking 5 years out, 10 years out, what's the best thing for Democrats? It's 4 more years of Donald Trump bashing. What's the best thing for CNN? Chris knows this.
Justin Haskins:Right? I mean, what's the best thing for CNN? It's 4 more years of Trump.
Chris Talgo:It's not 4 years of MSNBC just had their lowest ratings of all time last week.
Jim Lakely:Exactly.
Chris Talgo:They are desperate to get Trump back in the White House. No one no one's watching the MSNBC and CNN right now. Look at look what happened to CNN streaming platform. Give me a break.
Justin Haskins:Exactly. And and that having the villain specter of Donald Trump, like, looming over the country, the resistance thing comes back into the woodwork, fighting back against the dictatorship of Trump, like, all these things that they that that we know they're gonna do if Trump wins. That is good for ratings. Lots and lots of money for the left. I don't think that's what they want.
Justin Haskins:Ideally, they wouldn't choose that. But if you're gonna lose an election, you might as well lose in a year where you have a terrible candidate who if he wins, it's probably not great for your side long term anyway. He's probably gonna have to leave and resign before the 4 years is up. He's really unpopular. Kamala Harris would also be really unpopular.
Justin Haskins:If you're gonna have a throwaway election, this is the best situation for them because the Republican coming in, they think probably isn't gonna be popular, and we get to make lots of money turning him into a dictator and on and on and on. So I wonder how much of that is playing into all of this too. Like, I wonder if there is a part of them that's like, you know what? This is lost. Let's just throw this one in the trash, and let's turn our attention to making money off of the anti Trump stuff, and we'll we'll win 4 years from now.
Justin Haskins:I I really do wonder how much of that is at play right now.
Donald Kendal:So so you said you're 51% chance that he's drops out. Is that what you said?
Justin Haskins:51%, he drops out. Kamala comes in last minute right before the convention, and she loses to Trump.
Donald Kendal:Alright. Jim Jim, your your thoughts your thoughts. Is he dropping out, staying in? What do you think?
Jim Lakely:Actually, I think he's staying in. I think if if the if the people that want him out haven't already if they if they the only way to get him out is to threaten his family. I mean, you know, really hardcore threaten his family saying, you know, Hunter's going to jail. You're going to jail. We're going to, make sure that, the whole Biden family is ruined.
Jim Lakely:And so if they had that kind of leverage for real, they would have used it already to get them out, in the last week. The other option is is they're waiting around the Biden family's waiting around for the payoff. Somebody's gotta make sure that the Biden gravy train influencing peddling gravy train continues even without the influence peddling anymore. So they may be just sitting there holding out for a payout. And the third option is that, Joe Biden and especially Jill Biden are so vain and, you know, that and stubborn that they refuse, as you said, Donnie to and Justin to just have their political career, 51 year old political career, go down in the most humiliating fashion possible.
Jim Lakely:Possible. I mean, I I think, frankly, it's too late for that. That's already happened. But, I I think that they're going to stick it out and that, the message will be they'll still try to, you know, echo the same message, convicted felon, convicted felon. The media will really help by pairing the idea that democracy will end if if Donald Trump is elected president, that a new fascist regime is on the way, the new republic, what what what was once a pretty mainstream liberal left leaning journal of opinion just this week published a cover story with, wait for it, Donald Trump as Hitler with the mustache and the and the uniform and everything.
Jim Lakely:So I think they probably figured that their best way at and and again, there's the the idea that it's there's not enough time. There's really not enough time. All the money that's been raised has to stay with the Biden Harris campaign. You can't just transfer that to somebody else. Gretchen Whitmer just, I think, this morning or yesterday said, all this speculation that I'd like to, you know, grab the banner and run forward to defeat Donald Trump.
Jim Lakely:That's all BS. I'm behind Biden right away, you know, all the way. Newsom has said the same thing. So I think the easiest, you know, kinda like politics, Occam's razor, Biden's there. If they had the leverage to to to get them out, they would have used it already.
Jim Lakely:And so he's gonna go down with the ship, the party's gonna go down with the ship, and, the media is gonna completely go crazy, as they always do.
Chris Talgo:Tony, what do you think?
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna say I think he's dropping out. I think that they're going to, do I think, Chris, you mentioned the idea of, like, hey. You know, we're gonna throw a whole bunch of money at you for this presidential library. You gotta salvage your legacy, all of that.
Donald Kendal:You had a great 4 years. You beat Medicare. I mean, COVID, you did all of
Justin Haskins:this staff.
Donald Kendal:You did all this great stuff. You gotta go out on top, guy. And so we're gonna we're gonna, like, grease we're gonna grease that streak for you, and you're and you're gonna go out a champion. We're gonna replace you with somebody else. And I think that what's going on right now, is unfortunate for their side.
Donald Kendal:They'd obviously, they don't want it to go down like this. But for him to for him to continue forward, I mean, that is just an admitting defeat. Like, there's no possible way that this candidate, with this lack of support by any of the media, is gonna somehow take out Donald Trump. There is no way. Their only their only possibility is some late in the game, change.
Donald Kendal:And I don't care about what Newsom's saying right now. I don't care about what Whitmer's saying right now. They're just reading the, the media, you know, cards that they're that they get sent every day. Like, no. This week, I'm actually, in support of Joe Biden.
Donald Kendal:Right. It's all BS. They're just saying that because they have to say that. When the rubber meets the road, I think Kamala Harris is gonna be the the the nominee, and Gretchen Whitmer is gonna be the VP. So
Partisan Hacks:What?
Donald Kendal:That's my prediction. And we'll see what happens. But, again, you know, even if somebody's prediction comes out correctly and some others don't, I don't wanna see any gloating because there's no way that anybody is accurately predicting what's going on because this is all unprecedented. This is going down in the history books. That's like the worst debate performance of all time, and it's just a it's a fun media circus to pay attention to.
Donald Kendal:But, gentlemen, any last words, any anecdotes, anything you wanna get off your chest before we say goodbye for this episode?
Jim Lakely:Support the show. Go to go to heartland.org/inthetank. Help us, help support the show. That'd be great.
Donald Kendal:Yep. Yep. Yep. Chris, what were you saying?
Chris Talgo:I was gonna say attention to Democrats. You reap what you sow. Your chickens have come home to roost. You made your bed, now lie in it. That's all I got.
Donald Kendal:Justin? You're the one that didn't say anything.
Justin Haskins:No. I've got nothing. It's already
Donald Kendal:he's already exhausted all his ammunition. Alright. Thank you all for tuning in to this episode of the in the tank podcast. If you're listening to the show, the audio only version on Itunes, first of all, leave a review for us. That would be greatly appreciated.
Donald Kendal:And, also, consider joining us, where we are streaming this live on YouTube and Rumble and Twitter or x, whatever you wanna call it, and Facebook. And you can join the conversation live. Throw your comments and questions in the chat. Maybe we'll show your comments on the screen. Maybe we'll address your questions on the fly.
Donald Kendal:You could also support the show, I guess, on Rumble. You can donate to us through Rumble. More than that today. We are demonetized on YouTube. So if you wanna support the show and you're watching us on YouTube, you can go to heartland.org/inthe tank.
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Donald Kendal:Jim Lakely, where can the fine people find you?
Jim Lakely:Atjlakelyonx/Twitter@heartlandinst on x slash Twitter. And also follow us on at stop socialists at on x slash Twitter. And thanks for everybody on that channel watching us today.
Donald Kendal:Absolutely. Justin Haskins, same question.
Justin Haskins:Don't worry about where to find me. Everybody, go to, whatever Joe Biden's presidential website is. Go to all social media accounts are and beg him to stay in the race. Tell him how important he is. Tell him he's really smart and great and wonderful.
Justin Haskins:He needs a boost right now. He's struggling. We gotta get him to election day. We need to do this, guys. Team Biden, we can do it all the way to election day, and then, of course, don't vote for him or do whatever you want.
Justin Haskins:I don't care. But just, let's let's give him let's give him a round of support right now while while he desperately needs it.
Donald Kendal:We gotta get Yeah. That that whole debate performance, it was just a stutter. It was just a stutter. Chris, tell me, what do you what do you have to pitch today?
Chris Talgo:Oh, I second Justin's idea, and in fact, I think I should write several op eds, you know, promoting Joe Biden and sourcing him, in the next couple months just to make sure, you know, that he doesn't, drop out.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Don't believe your lying eyes. Biden's debate for performance was top notch. That's, that's your next headline.
Chris Talgo:That's my next
Jim Lakely:headline. Yeah.
Donald Kendal:Thank you all for tuning in, and we will talk to
Partisan Hacks:you next week. You've answered every question. You knew all the best. And let me ask the crowd. What did Trump do?