00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes breaking news. Joining me now is my Forbes
00:06colleague, staff writer, Zach Everson. Zach, thanks so much for joining me.
00:10Thanks for having me on, Brittany. Excited to chat about the debate.
00:14I think the debate is a very good place to start. First question is what happened? Many
00:20people, both sides of the aisle, have been calling President Biden's performance disastrous.
00:26Tell us about it.
00:28Yeah, the whole thing was awful. It was an awful debate. I mean, Donald Trump showed
00:34up and acted like Donald Trump and lied and changed the subject and did all the Donald
00:40Trump sort of things that you'd expect him to do, which is not exactly what you're looking
00:45for in a presidential candidate. But none of that was new. What was new, the big question
00:51was how would Joe Biden handle a debate? Now, remember, he did not have any primary debates.
00:57He went through relatively uncontested. There were some other candidates there. They did
01:01want to debate him. The Biden campaign said no. In hindsight, maybe it would have helped.
01:07It might have level set expectations because what we witnessed last night has been called
01:12devastating. That very well may be the case. Time will tell. But what we saw last night
01:19was a man in his 80s staying up at 9 p.m. trying to have convincing conversations for
01:2690 minutes. And he fell way short of what most Americans would want their president to be like.
01:31I was talking to a Democratic strategist earlier today, and she said it wasn't even so much
01:37Donald Trump won this debate. It was that Joe Biden lost and he lost pretty badly.
01:42He continuously trailed off. He lost his train of thought pretty frequently. He didn't fill
01:48in those gaps where the moderators a few times said, Mr. President, you have this many seconds
01:52left. Do you want to add anything? There have been a lot of calls today and last night for
01:57President Biden to step down. So first, could Biden be replaced as the nominee?
02:04Yes. Yes, that could certainly happen. You're right. His responses last night were
02:10trailed off, gibberish. And it reminded me a lot of the video of I think it was Miss South
02:16Carolina that went viral probably 15 years ago with an answer. And she did not move on to the
02:22beauty pageant. So yeah, the Democrats have some options. The best options for them would be if
02:29President Biden were to say, I'm not running. That does not seem likely to happen, though.
02:36I just spent a fair amount of time reporting on Biden when doing his net wealth, reading his
02:41biography. And that's not the story he tells himself. He views himself as somebody who's
02:48come back time and time again. And that's true to a certain extent. But, you know, he's also
02:52in his 80s now and he's not going to get less old like that. That's going to continue to happen.
02:59There's not really a way to bounce back from this. So, yeah, they certainly they could try to
03:04push him out, you know, a few gentle, gently coaxing him out the door. And there's also
03:09something they could do at the at the convention, whereas these delegates do have I think they have
03:15to vote in good conscience to support the person who won the primary that, you know, maybe their
03:21conscience says, let's go with somebody else. As you said, President Biden does really consider
03:27himself the comeback kid. And this story played out. I mean, not the debate, but the story of
03:33being the comeback kid played out in the twenty twenty election where everyone said during the
03:36primary, it's not President Biden's time at one point at that point. He was vice president, but
03:42he came in fifth in, I believe, Iowa. And then when it was the South Carolina's primary,
03:48things turned around for him. But he does he did sweep this primary season. He does have
03:52enough delegates to be voted as the official nominee in August at the DNC. So would he have
03:58to leave voluntarily? Now, these delegates could go ahead and move without him, but he's been the
04:05head of the party for such a long time. He got to pick a lot of these delegates. They are Biden
04:10loyalists. You know, I don't see enough just immediately jumping ship to give anybody else
04:14a majority on this. I think there you need to see some coordination, some some jockeying before the
04:20convention to figure out who would be the right person to to to fill his spot. You know, in four
04:26years, it's a long time, especially when you're dealing with somebody of that age. You know, we
04:31all know people in their 70s and 80s, loved ones, relatives, friends. And there could be a big
04:39difference in four years. I mean, heck, there could be a big difference in six months. There's
04:43people age when they're when they're seniors. And it's the Joe Biden of 2020 is not what we're
04:49getting now. And that was that was painfully clear last night. And it was painfully clear last night
04:54that the Joe Biden we got last night wasn't even the Joe Biden at the State of the Union who did
04:58seem more energetic, who did seem like he had more vigor in him, who wasn't incoherent at all there.
05:06But what would happen to his campaign money? Would he be able to transfer that? What would
05:10that look like? Let's say Democrats choose the path of replacing Biden.
05:15The options there are pretty limited. He could make the money would basically I mean,
05:21he could just sit on it and say, I'm not giving it to anybody. First thing you would have to do,
05:24though, would be to pay off any debts, any vendors, and then he could transfer it all
05:29to the party. And this is obviously an option should Donald Trump drop out as well,
05:33that they can transfer the money to the party and then the party could do what it wants with
05:38the money. So kind of taking us back to old school, you know, back rooms, party bosses,
05:42cigars and all that kind of stuff. And I think there'd also be a price to pay for this as well,
05:48because primary voters spoke. Did they have all the information that we do now about Joe Biden? No.
05:54But when you're going ahead and I think part of the big push the Democrats have is that
05:59they are the party that is fighting to preserve democracy. And that message is really going to be
06:05weakened and say, oh, yeah, that guy who are voters just elected in the primaries. Never
06:09mind him. We're going to nominate somebody else. But they were the party itself would get could
06:14get the money. Democrats I talked to last night and this morning feel a big gas lit today after
06:21watching that debate because Democratic lawmakers for the past year have been saying, no, President
06:26Biden behind closed doors. He is sharp. He is with it. All those videos you see are a lie.
06:33The Wall Street Journal had a piece a few weeks ago saying behind closed doors,
06:37President Biden is slipping. And Democrats came on the record after that and said,
06:42no, that is not true. That's a lie. But then the American people last night saw him at that debate
06:48and it was a different story. So who would be the Democrats that are being floated that would
06:53replace Biden? Oh, gosh, I many, many of them. And Gavin Newsom is obviously the name that comes
06:59to the forefront. He certainly positioned himself in that in that way. He has a political action
07:06committee that's already out there. He's been running around the country trying to make a big
07:10name for himself. So he's certainly the one that comes to mind. Obviously, California,
07:14not a purple state, very Democratic. The other names typically come from swing states where
07:20they're people who've shown that they can win in a purple state. So you've got Raphael Warnock,
07:24the senator from Atlanta or from Georgia, who won, I think it was like two statewide campaigns in two
07:30or three years because he came in to fill part of a term and then got reelected. So he certainly
07:36showed it. Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan is another name that's coming to the top of people's list as
07:41well. What about Vice President Kamala Harris? Because Biden has a low approval rating. She
07:48in some polls has an even lower approval rating. Is she a choice that people are floating?
07:54Well, I mean, she's the vice president. So, yes, people are going to mention her.
08:00There's some speculation that maybe Biden would have stepped aside after one term,
08:04and that was his intent. He did talk about being a transitional president years ago,
08:08but decided against it because he realized Harris was not up to the job.
08:12She's certainly taken a lot of negative press. Putting her in charge of the border is not a
08:17situation that's going to set her up for success. So, you know, she's still there.
08:22She is the logical choice to run. But I don't know. I just I just don't see her having much
08:31of a chance at all. I don't see a lot of Democrats really coalescing around her.
08:36I saw an interesting post today on Twitter that said Bill Clinton was elected 30 years ago,
08:43over 30 years ago in 1992. And as of today, he's younger than both Donald Trump and President
08:50Biden. And I'm thinking about his wife, Hillary Clinton, who ran for president in 2016.
08:55Is she a possibility?
08:59The Trump campaign would love that. I mean, there is nothing like putting up somebody who he
09:04already beat out there. No, no, you would not see a possibility. Maybe. Would that be a good
09:11decision for anybody? Only for Donald Trump. I mean, she she she ran a terrible campaign when
09:18she had a full apparatus in place now to come in and do this without any apparatus, with really,
09:23you know, being a civilian for the last six, seven years. I think it would be a horrible choice for
09:28Democrats to go in that direction. And, you know, there's nothing when you're saying, oh,
09:33these candidates are too old, they're too old. Coming with somebody about that same age is not
09:37really a good play. And when people aren't that enthusiastic about a 2020 sequel, I don't know
09:43how enthusiastic they would be about a 2016 one. But I am curious about what you're thinking about
09:49next, because obviously there aren't poll numbers that are coming in yet after the debate. But we're
09:55less than 24 hours out. And while we have seen op ed after op ed begging President Biden to drop
10:02out, pundits on all networks saying President Biden, you should step aside. Democrats are
10:08coalescing around him. President Biden himself indicated he's sticking in the race. He said,
10:13let's keep going. He also did admit he's not as good of a debater as he has been in the past.
10:20President Obama today posted on social media saying he he essentially chalked it up to a bad
10:25debate night. Congressman Jim Clyburn said he's going to tell Biden to, quote, stay the course.
10:31So what are you looking out for next?
10:35Money. You know, I think they'd claim that they had a pretty decent
10:39haul after the debate. Now, whether that was, you know, it might have just been sympathy.
10:43People might have just thought it was one of those charity commercials on there, like, you know,
10:47with the dogs in cages and then like, oh, man, we got to give this guy some money and help him out.
10:51Or whether it was because they were now excited, more excited than ever about Joe Biden's
10:56candidacy. I don't know. But it's not just the money for him. It's the money for the down ballot
11:02races, too. There's a lot of talk that he could be a drag on Democrats chances in the House and
11:09in the Senate. And, you know, you're looking at a possibility of him basically doing to the
11:14executive and the legislative branches what Ruth Bader Ginsburg did to the judiciary,
11:19where somebody who's an elder person and their party highly revered doesn't exactly
11:26know when to leave the stage. And it ends up costing their party in the long run,
11:32ends up costing the values that they fought their entire career for because they didn't
11:36know when to say goodbye. You know, they ended up getting able to get replaced by a Republican.
11:42And I think that's something that Biden is certainly at risk of doing. And, you know,
11:47given Republicans control of all three branches.
11:50You mentioned Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I'm thinking of Dianne Feinstein, who did not
11:55leave when others called on her. I'm thinking of President Biden. Do you think Democrats
12:02could potentially have a legacy problem here when you look at that type of behavior?
12:08Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's their their rules for how they handle their seniority in
12:15Congress are different than Republicans. And it's largely based on seniority. And you you're
12:19not forced off the leadership of these committees after a lot of you after a few years. So you have
12:23these people who stick around forever and they're they're not ushered off the stage and they don't
12:30know exactly when to leave. And that's just a huge problem. You know, Feinstein wasn't as big
12:36a deal because the Democrats were going to be able to replace her with another Democrat.
12:39There was some strategy to that, that they didn't want to have to spend money defending her seat
12:43if it was open. It would cost a little bit more this way. They'd have more money. But that was
12:48also somewhat short sighted. You know, at some point you're going to have to fight for, you know,
12:51Dianne Feinstein wasn't going to stay there forever. At some point that seat was going to
12:54open up and you're going to have to deal with that. So, yeah, I do think the Democrats have a
12:58problem with that. And that that goes back to Obama. Actually, I think Obama really didn't
13:04develop that deep of a bench. You know, he was widely viewed as having his own apparatus outside
13:09of the Democratic Party that got him elected and did a wonderful job getting him elected. But then
13:14when he was gone, the Democratic Party didn't have that infrastructure to follow him up. Hillary was
13:20viewed as the heir apparent. You know, that didn't turn out well for them. And there really wasn't
13:25anybody younger who was ready to come in behind him. And we got Donald Trump and we very well may
13:31get Donald Trump again. Well, Zach Everson, per usual, thank you for the conversation.
13:37My pleasure, Brittany. Have a good weekend.
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