Chapo Trap House - 935 - It’s Joever feat. David J. Roth (5/19/25)

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

We planned this episode to cover the spate of stories revealing just how out of it and diminished Joe Biden was during his term, and new details about the political flunkies and media stooges who were complicit in covering it up. But yesterday Biden’s team announced an almost certainly life-ending cancer diagnosis. So we’re joined by David Roth to discuss how it’s finally well and truly Joever. Find David’s work at Defector here: https://defector.com/author/david-roth New merch for the summer up at https://chapotraphouse.store/

All I wanna do is hit the drum. Hello everybody, it's Monday, May 19th and Chapo is back at it again. Well folks, for today's episode, we've been planning this for a week or so now. We wanted to do an episode about the new spate of revelations about Joe Biden's senility, how it was hid from the public, and the sort of just general ass-covering effort that's going on right now to convince you that people are on top of this or that they simply didn't know any better. Well, the news cycle has gifted us. We don't have to talk about that anymore. We can just talk about his impending death. And joining us to do that is our old pal,

one of the Chapo all times, David Roth is back on the show. David, welcome. What's up, how are you guys? Doing good. I guess just, like I said, by way of introduction to the show, I'd like to begin the show like this I've just prepared a little monologue I've seen things seen things you max wouldn't believe Amtrax on fire off the shoulder of the beltway listen listen shut up I watch gold in my ear glitter in the darkness near near

Jerusalem gate all those moments will be lost in time like dearest in the rain anyway I'm sorry time to die you think so I'm kidding I'm not kidding oh man um so yeah uh just a sturdy little Biden imitation you got there man well is it just a matter of raising your voice is that the secret to having a good night I just like, I try to copy Felix and Andrew Hudson's. I mean, like, I'm sure they could do it better. But, you know, I just wrote this one up. It's about it. So it's halting. It's stopping and getting loud and then then really quiet.

And then and then crucially, at some point, you have to say anyway, I'm sorry. I think Andrew does the best one. He said my favorite fake Biden ism, is like, everybody knows that when you want to be Santa, you got to work like an elf. Yeah. I mean, I know people say this about everything. I think about this all the time. I legitimately think about that every day because it's a perfect like 2019 Bidenism

where it's like, on one hand, I'm thinking, we should send this guy out in a canoe in the Bering Strait. But on the other hand, I do think that's true about being Santa Claus. But the key to doing it really is the random yelling. My sister has a very good, one of the first people to do a Biden impression, and she talked about how, you remember the first debate they did where Castro like got, you know, they painted a big scarlet A on his chest and like put him on a dunking stool and killed him for saying that Biden seemed old? Yes.

His closing thing in that debate was like, I remember John McCain came up to me and said, you're another man. I'm another man. We'd be my Paul Barrett. That would be an honor. And this is what it's all about. And not this vague, vague bullshit. Like he said, he gets, he remembers that he's senile and then he gets really mad and he's

like, ah, I was supposed to do this when I was normal. Well, I mean, we almost saw yesterday, headline, former President Joe Biden diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. And you know, apparently it's spread to his bones. But like I thought about this in in this context, because I looked this up. And this is an article from NPR from February 28th 2024. The headline is Biden just got a physical but a cognitive test was not part of the assessment. And like it goes on to say that like you know White House press secretary,

Kareem Jean-Pierre told reporters that his doctors determined he didn't need a cognitive exam, though Biden's longtime doctor did not address the matter directly in report. So I guess my question here is did they give him any kind of exam? Yeah, this is something that's emerged in the coverage of this, is that he seems to have like the opposite relationship with his doctor of every old person that I know. Like my parents social life at this point, they are. My dad is Biden's age, my mom a couple of years younger.

Their social life is basically going to the doctor and talking to their doctor. And that's, you know, I think it's fairly rewarding for them. They certainly are right on top of their health outcomes. But the idea of this that there's the neurologist that kept visiting the White House that apparently has been like Biden's neurologist for many years. It's unclear what he was ever doing there if he was never in this test. Like it seems like he was just kind of popping by to like talk about the Phillies for a little while and be like, well, all right. It's 2 30 PM. We need to get you ready for bed, sir.

Like, just like, do you know anyone where it's like, I would let them drive a car or dog sit me a dog sit in my house. They just have a neurologist that sees them once a week. drive a car or dog sit me, dog sit in my house. They just have a neurologist that sees him once a week. Like having a neurologist that's always seeing you in the first place is kind of alarming, but you bring up a great point. Was it like literally that conservative meme

where he gives him a puzzle with two pieces and he gets it most of the time. And he's like, all right, pretty good. The actual test too is basically, I mean, I think that the one that they're referring to is the one that Trump often brags about like, acing, which is basically like, point to an elephant and he's like, right on top of it, you know, like if you can't put the drawing of an elephant in front of the president of the United States, you don't know what he's going to point to, then like, I do feel like that's one of those deals where you got to let people know a little bit more

that that's the case. Like he's right on the elephant 70% of the time during the middle part of the day. That's news that you can use. You think that like, I mean, because it's also a great point about how like they didn't figure this out until like the the the polyps in his prostate became sentient and were like, hey, what about us? Like a faint voice talking about Scranton high school football outcomes coming from his pants. No, like that's probably for a lot older people that just happens.

Hey, we want to get back in the White House. You going to get us in? I think it's because like they're probably trying because it's like they're like, well, sir, you haven't your eye hasn't melted in the past week, but it's still good to do a checkup because you look disgusting and you're ancient and you probably should have died by now. Like they want to give him a prostate exam or something and he invited such an asshole that he's probably like, what are you talking about? What do you mean? You give the other

guy a prostate exam? They're like, okay, Jesus, fine. I was talking to my dad and I'm like, he's so two fellas giving each other a prostate exam. I said, what's that? He said, they're gay. It's medical best practices, Joey. It's a good idea for anyone your age. Donald Trump could come out there and smoke a cigarette and can't even have the lotion.

They'd say, there's no cancer for him, but I'd do anything. They'd say, I have to get cancer. No, I'm not getting the test. I've also learned that the test that needs to, this is not like exclusively learned, I cracked the case. I did read a blog post about it. The test that he would be getting doesn't involve his trusted neurologist and apparent best friend

putting his finger in his asshole. It's a blood test. It's like a blood test that they would do when they took blood for the basic physical workup that you would get. Which again raises the question of like what? Yeah, what kind of physical workup he was getting? Yeah, like, you know, like, they just like what they're like, I'm looking at your results here right now, Mr. President, it's a okay. And

it's just like the rebound of like a slot machine. Yeah, jackpot. It's all cherries, sir. Congratulations. But Zeke Emanuel was on Morning Joe today. And I believe he was involved in the Biden White House or some like, you know, health official, he's like a cancer doctor for many years. He said Biden has had this cancer since like twit since his dukes elected the first time. It is also he said, like he said, there is no way that Biden developed this cancer in the last 200 days.

The one bit I'd add to that is that while I imagine that that's true, it is also extremely Emanuel family values to go on morning Joe and be like, I haven't examined Joe Biden. I don't know the man, but I'm going to tell you a little bit about the disease that will almost certainly take his life at some time. I would estimate in the next nine weeks. Yeah, just pop it off. No caveats. Okay, so like, obviously, when I saw this news yesterday, all I could think about was like, it just made me regret so much that

he didn't win this presidential election. Oh, my god, it's a couple of just like, Kamala could actually have been president. Okay, I was just like reading from the news article here about it. It says at the end, typically a patient is treated with hormone therapy that blocks the production of testosterone, which helps the cancer grow, he said. He could definitely live many years with this. There's a wide range of how long people can live with metastatic prostate cancer. In most aggressive cases, under a year, but there are reports of people living 15 or 20 years too. Let's go.

So we can run again. 2028. Yeah. 2028. Let's go. Let's go. 2028. Yeah. 2028. Let's go. Will, I was, I really like that hypothetical if like, you know, because you could see it, like he stays on and then there's like, like there's a weird JD Vance thing. It's like, okay, we found JD Vance's drowning fetish channel. Drowning Fetish YouTube channel. Like a real black swan event, to take a concept from Dr. Taleb. And Biden wins by a single-digit amount of EVs, instantly dies from the stress of having

Billy Porter twirl around at his inauguration. But Billy Porter wearing Homer Simpson's obesity movement spinning so fast that it ruptures both his eyes. Bradley Whitford quips so pointed, Biden dies instantly. He's just on the spot. He evaporates like a Dark Souls 3 Black Knight. And Kamala becomes president. That is maybe the worst scenario if you don't want Republicans to do well,

because then it's just like they win every seat, every, every, all the state legislatures is completely, completely over. Like that guy who gets his pictures taken, you know, wearing a Trump shirt, he's probably like our ambassador to the U.N. Like it's even like- The Brick Suit Man is a junior senator from the state.

Yeah. I love the Brick Suit guy. Brick Suit Man's great. At Brick Suit Man on every social media platform if you wanna see what he's up to. Yeah, like they would give the Medal of Honor to like, I don't know, they'll find like the pipe bomb guy from January 6th, that thing they always talk about, and be like, oh no, actually it did happen and we're giving him the Medal of Honor. And also Kamala as like a two year, two or three year, if Biden dies like midway through, that would be the funniest presidency ever.

I. God. Yeah. So I mean, see, I think I see I think if that happened and Biden died in office, they would do something and like be like, hey, Kamala, how about we give you secretary of state? But we're getting Hillary Clinton in here. We're getting someone else in there. Because I don't think they ever wanted her to be president. That's like the point that people made about like the initial tariff thing, where it's like if President Bernie Sanders was doing that, like Tim Cook would have been installed as the president of the United States within 48 hours of those being announced.

But certainly like the idea of like the apparatus swinging into effect in a constitutional crisis and being like for the good of America, like George Clooney is acting president. Oh, no. Yeah. Under under Kamala, they would just I mean, they would just cut out the middle man and make like Isaac Hertzog the president. Okay, so like, like, all last week, we were like, you know, thinking about doing this episode because they're like, there's all this, there's, you know, the new Jake Tapper book, there's all this media speculation, like all the Democratic pundits are like, you know, thinking about doing this episode because they're like, there's all this there's, you know, the new Jake Tapper book. There's all this media speculation, like all the Democratic pundits are like, wow, how could I have got this so wrong?

Like we truly vile discourse cycle just eased at every level. But like all of this was about them covering up his obvious senility. But like now we're dealing with the fact that like there's a strong possibility that they also covered up his impending death from cancer. It was very unclear from the initial, again, obnoxious Tapper Axios Thompson news cycle what the game plan was. If they somehow carried him across the finish line, just awake for five and a half hours a day, generally no idea what's going on. Like it wasn't clear what any of the five or six people on the inside were

going to do to continue to run the country in that sort of scenario. At this point it makes it like the gamble seem psychotic. Beyond it like went from being like a normal political level of sociopathic, where it's just basically people being like, oh, we'll figure it out, but we got the best and the brightest, to being like, there's no reason why a dead guy can't be president.

Is the deep end. I mean, I think you're seeing it now, because I don't know if you've seen what the Democratic line has been since this broke, but it has been like, okay, if you thought that the Thompson and Tapper helping the Biden people cover their ass book was evil before for revealing all the games of tic-tac-toe that he lost, it's especially evil now because they're doing it about a

dying man. Right. And it's like, no, like not that long ago, you were saying this dying man should be he should serve another four years as president, that there is nothing wrong with them. The only way like they're saying this exonerates them, because it's mean. Yeah. And by the way, Felix, you're 100% right. All the people who are like, And by the way, Felix, you're 100% right of all the people who are like, how dare you make fun of me as just a simple young 81 year old man who's been diagnosed with cancer. Just trying to know how dare you.

I mean, how dare you dream of hanging on to power until his last moments on earth. He had so much life left. Yeah. And no, but Felix but you're exactly right. Anyone who's saying that, who is of the male gender who has a prostate and isn't already pulling it out of his asshole to give to Joe Biden is a fraud and a liar and a betrayer. Yeah. You want to live your stupid life until you die of old age when this this grand old man, probably the kindest, the most decent American president we've ever had is on death's door?

I don't think so. Yeah. I'll go one step farther. Okay. I wasn't supposed to reveal this, but my friend at DARPA took me on a tour of his job. It was bring your friend to work day. And I'm sorry if you're listening, but I have to make a point. I hope you understand.

We have the technology, we have the Ngram technology from cyberpunk. You can put someone's soul on a little flash drive and you can transfer them between bodies. The problem was no one wanted to sacrifice their body for Joe Biden's. All these people who had amazing prostates that had no problems, prostates that you could eat a meal off of. They said, I love Joe Biden, I'll give him my prostate maybe, but he can't, I'm not letting his soul take over mine and my body.

And now look what happened, Donald Trump is president. All because people wouldn't allow Joe Biden's cybernetic version of himself to pilot their body to run the beach, Delaware. For seven weeks per year. Yeah, it's really it's really fucked up. The tenor of these of these like spurious revelations about how out of it he was in like ass covering from like all these anonymous sources. It seems to me like this is part and parcel of like a perpetual cycle in DC.

We're like between the media and the government. We're like the government and people in charge of it do something spectacularly evil and stupid. And then like everybody is aware of it in real time. But then spend years lying about it and covering it up. And then like it crescendos to a point where simply like it cannot be contained anymore. And I'm thinking specifically about like the Iraq War and like the live WMD lies and stuff like that. And somewhere around 2007 ish, 2008, or like certainly after Obama was elected, everyone kind of had to give up the ghost and be like, well, yeah, like, yeah, the Iraq War was a mistake.

But like, how are we to know about it? You know? Yeah, I was gonna say there's been way more like gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over this story than there ever was over that shit already, that there's been so much more, especially from like, you know, Jake Tapper grade, being like, they lied to us. Yeah, like, we lied to our faces like the 100 people in American politics that would get recognized in a Chipotle by a normal person being like, they lied to us. Yeah, like, we lied to our faces. Like the 100 people in American politics that would get recognized in a chipotle by a normal person, like, which is if it's 100, all of those people have been talking about this of late, like being like, we have a charge to keep with the American people.

Today, this day, we have not. I saw a clip the other day and it was a it was like it was just a screenshot of CNN and it was Jake Chapper hosting Van Jones and David Axelrod and the comments were, we were lied to you about this. People need to be held accountable. It's like, are you telling me David Axelrod didn't know about the Joe Biden's mental state until this week? Yeah. And also the fact that this is the thing that they are willing to be like, all right, this one's on me.

Like, I really should have asked tougher questions. All the other fucking shit that you're wrong about. All the stuff that got us to this moment, which is like, again, this is the other bit that's deranging about this particular discourse and the way that it was going on. It's like this is a real low ebb in American history, right? Like we are winding the clock back 130 years, the dumbest people our country has ever produced are in charge and just like pouring grapefruit juice into the USB-C ports of the computers that keep our country running. And the discourse that is happening at this moment at the highest levels, not in the side that is propagandizing for like how good grapefruit juice is for the inside of a computer, not in the side that is propagandizing for how good grapefruit juice is for the inside of a computer.

But the other side is basically like, do you remember the time that Joe Biden fell off his bike? I should have probably gotten more upset. That's on me. Yeah. And it's like in the context too of all the aftershocks of the Biden presidency, be it the grapefruit juice regime or the ongoing fucking genocide that he went out of his way to enable and basically forfeited the election for.

That it's this agonizing Bartlett in the church type thing. I try to call out the bastards, but sometimes I can be a dumb son of a bitch. God damn it. I fucked up. But it takes a real newsman to admit blah, blah, blah. Like, like we didn't in 2019 didn't see Joe Biden look at a fat guy and go, what's his name? Oh, right, fat. Or when his eye filled with blood on the stage of the Democratic primary debate. Any of it, any of it. They do that, and they're like, okay, we've apologized

for the one thing we ever fucked up. Anyway, 40,000 children have been killed. Were they all in Hamas? Was there a... We go live now to the command structure that is under this kindergarten. Does this give you pause about anything else if you're Jake Tapper? No. Beloved children's entertainer, Ms. Rachel, doubles down on her controversial statement,

it's wrong to kill children. Yeah. This is a moment of reckoning. All of America's parents must ask themselves whether they want somebody who is anti-child death to be entertaining their kids on YouTube. Yeah, I mean, that's the bit of this, to your point, Felix, too, that like,

so much of the story that, you know, like to the extent that there's anything there beyond the kind of like gossip and like theatrical monologuing that you were talking about. The idea is basically as I understood it that the White House was running on something like energy saver mode since like, 2023. Like it was just basically on it knew that the battery was low. So it was shutting down non-vital apps. Nobody like three guys ever got to see Joe Biden. And basically the rule was like, if you wanted to get your message to him, you would brief somebody that had known Joe Biden for 66 years, and then that guy

either would or wouldn't tell him what you said. So the government is at this point, like more or less piloting itself. And yet, as you said, one of the things that the government was capable of doing during that period, during a time when there was effectively the minimum viable amount of governance going on, they were still able to just like on a quarterly basis sell $10 billion worth of bunker buster bombs to Israel to drop onto tents. That that's something that the government can do even if nobody's driving. Yeah, all the automatic functions of empire continued nobody's driving. Yeah, yeah. All the automatic

functions of empire continued. So we thought everything was fine. Yeah. Like David, David, to your point about sort of the media reactions to this, I think the selection I have that's most indicative of this is New York Times opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg from last week. The headline is, how did so many elective Democrats miss Biden's infirmity? And in the end she says, yeah. Yeah, I'm so sick of this woman. She's such a dumb dumb and I hate that she gets to have a column

just because she's Bill Goldberg's daughter. Oh wow, your dad got slapped on the back a lot by other naked guys and destroyed. I guess we should all listen to you now. But she writes here, in 2022, after I wrote a column arguing that Joe Biden was too old to run for re-election, I had a bunch of conversations and at least one cable TV debate with Democrats who thought I was wrong. I don't remember there being much difference between what these Democrats said publicly and privately.

I certainly wasn't hearing off the record whispers about Biden's decline. Instead, officials and pundits I spoke to seemed convinced that it would be crazy for the party to give up the advantages of incumbency that are primary risk creating nasty fissures among Democratic factions, and most relevantly that Biden's legislative successes proved he was still up to the job. Some of them appeared so sure I was mistaken and that I wondered if they might be right. These doubts are why, to my shame, I didn't write another column calling on him to step aside until next year.

So like we're seeing like Michelle Goldberg is admitting to the fact that like she was actually correct. Yeah, long ago enough that like, yes, of course, he was too old to run for president. But then she was like, well, then paid surrogates for the Democratic Party lied to me and I believe them. It's also so perfectly the Democrats that you're writing a column that was basically like two years before anybody else noticed this very obvious thing. I wrote a column about this very obvious thing. I'm sorry about having done that. You simply cannot stand

up there and be like, I'm a little bit mad about this thing that happened and here's what I want to have happen instead. Instead of just like breaking down tape, like the way it's like, whatever, you're watching the all 22 of the last two years and just crying at every punt return touchdown that you've allowed. It's like getting to work on drawing up any sort of plays that would prevent you from losing games by six punt return touchdowns every week. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's the thing is like, because there is no greater sin than being right too early.

Yeah. Well, that's like the, I think that's a point that people have made too about my colleague. I think Albert Brunico wrote this at Defector, was basically like the idea of like being right about the Iraq war before the Iraq war started was not beneficial to the careers of the people that were. I mean, like some of those people were kooks or whatever, like Scott Ritters and stuff like that, like we're well rid of it. But there is also this other aspect of it where it's like that's rude. Like the idea of this is you're not- It's a breach of decorum. It's rude and it's uncivil.

Yeah, so you're not fitting within this. Like if you were on the wrong end of that argument, but within the boundaries of the discourse, you're allowed to continue to be a part of it. If you were outside of it, you're just outside of it. And that's the end of the game, which I think is bad. Sorry, I don't know if I'm making that clear. Yeah, I want to get into the Jake Tapper book because he have the excerpt that's in the New Yorker. There's a couple of good ones. This is just the biggest revelations in the new book on

Joe Biden's troubling decline. This is for New York magazine. First one, Biden aides looked into the possibility he would need to use a wheelchair. I guess he really was the next FDR. That story, too, was one of those things where it's like that was where, especially before this took the turn that it did with like the news that he's very sick. So many of those headlines were that kind of like cheesy, like just trying to like spin all of these stories out of a book that no one has read all of or ever will read all of.

Yeah. And so it's just like finding this other, like, yeah, plenty of people like to get onto and off of different things. He needs assistance or whatever. Like, I don't, I mean, I guess like if you work at the Hill and you have to be like, Biden used banister exiting airplanes, you've got to do it or whatever. But it's, yeah. I mean, the idea of that being in the New Yorker too is kind of another reminder of just how stupid the ship was from the jump from the very beginning. This is a per Axios, Tapper and Thompson write that Biden's physical deterioration, most apparent in his halting walk, had become so severe

there were internal discussions about putting the president in a wheelchair, but they couldn't do so till after the election. Per the book, Biden's physician, Kevin O'Connor, had warned the president had a bad fall in 23 or 2024. He might have to use a wheelchair while he recovered. Not surprisingly, Biden's aides thought it was untenable politically for him to use a wheelchair during his reelection campaign. And then Dr. Kevin O'Connor had long privately expressed concern that the toll of the presidency was taking on Biden's health. The doctor often argued with Biden's political officials to get him more rest time into the president's health. The doctor often argued with Biden's political officials

to get him more rest time into the president's schedule. O'Connor sometimes quip that Biden's staff members were trying to kill him while he was trying to keep him alive. Not so sure about that, doctor. Are you sure? You guys are putting a lot of pressure on me. You're really trying to keep him alive? Are you going to really make me draw blood from this man? He's like, the tolls of the presidency are killing him. My job as a doctor is to make sure he's still allowed to be president. Right. My job as a doctor is to go there and sit while he mumbles something about Darren Dalton and then falls asleep in front of me in the White House and then leave. That is if, if, if this guy's goal was to torture Joe Biden, then he like mission accomplished. You are like, you

are the perfect doctor. You know, you saw this man coming in that he was crying blood like le chif. And you were like, you were like, what's wrong? And he said, I'm not going to be able to take take my girl to see Bobby Darin. And you said, okay, well, we're going to give you a vitamin. It's called opana and it's going to be laced with another vitamin that is called cocaine. We're going to give it to you so you can go to the Home Depot presents the American Education Town Hall and you can call a college student a slur that John Wayne used in a movie that

was filmed in 1949. I mean, this guy may be, he may have given Joe Biden prostate cancer. We don't know what he was doing there. We know it's not conventional medical procedures because they, like, they're not, I doubt they're even like hitting his knee with a mallet. That might kill him. Like it causes like literal cartoon birds to fly around his knee. That is not a good indicator. I'm not going to follow up on that, but I don't think that's supposed to happen at all.

Patience shook his head around and went, a large welt appeared on the top of his head, but the patient was able to push it back down, making his head a normal shape and size. Putting it in the official press release that the Hanna-Barbera sound was loud and vigorous whenever he walked. That's the next book. I was Joe Biden's doctor. I could tell something was wrong when I came to the Lincoln bedroom one day to do a checkup, and he was on all fours covered in polka dots and he had

a tail but at the end of his tail was a flag that had a baseball and a large screw painted on it. I tried to warn the press about it but a huge eraser, a pencil eraser, turned into my reality. It didn't stop me before I was able to make a call. All right, enough is enough. This is the final, the very, very last draw. Who is responsible for this? I demand that you show yourself. Who are you? Am I a stinker? This is another one from the New York Post. Biden forgot the names of longtime aides Jake Sullivan, Kate Bedingfield halfway through

his term. Whoops. There's another one here. It says Democratic National Committee Chairman Jamie Harrison later that fall met Biden in a Congressional Black Caucus event and the president kept shaking his hands without shaking his hand without appearing to recognize him. Oh, well, okay. To be fair, I would do that to Jamie Harrison.

I would be, yeah. That is an instantly forgettable guy. I mean, for people who don't remember, they made this guy the head of the DNC because he raised $7 trillion to lose to Lindsey Graham by like 50 points. He had my favorite bio of all time on Twitter. My friend said that it was like he Googled things to be a fan of. It said fan, Costco, Marvel, Bojangles.

Oh boy. And it's like, man, you do not have a lot going on up there, do you, pal? I think it's the one thing I like more than going to Costco and getting six pounds of hummus at a time is watching a movie where Paul Rudd stands in an airplane hanger and goes, so that happened? Did you guys happen to see the the wonderful discourse that occurred last week on this subject? It was like, some, some, some white guy with glasses was just like, is disrespecting elders a thing in the white community? It was just like, because I have never seen black people disrespect their

elders the way white people do in the country. What are you talking about? It's like, we're not talking about my fucking grandparents, regardless their souls. I'm talking about the President of the United States, the guy who ran for president, I don't know, five or six months ago. Yeah, like, okay, if the president shits, isn't Donald Trump an elder? He's a white elder. Yeah, like, okay, if the president shits, isn't Donald Trump an elder?

He's a white elder. He deserves our respect. I mean, second, like, I just, even the premise alone pisses me off. Oh, yeah. It's like, it's like, I'm sorry, have you not seen the incredible barbs and slander and jokes aimed at unks from the black community? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm not calling it out, it's their business. I've retweeted a lot of jokes about UNCs. Why does the president not deserve the respect of the you can't do it on concrete guys? Miscellaneous UNCs are shooting poison everywhere and they're laughing at it. The premise is flawed.

I don't believe, like, I mean, this is just one of those implicitly racist assumptions that, like, a black guy would see, like, an old guy who's, like, a guy who's trying to fly a plane in this analogy, like the pilot on your flight, and he's wearing a diaper and he's sucking a big lollipop and the only thing that he's wearing besides a diaper is, like, a sailor, like the top to a sailor outfit. And he's, they're constantly like circulating new blood into him. And he's like, well, I guess I would say something, but that's an elder. Ghosts will kill me if I insult an elder. The idea of like, owing deference to these impossibly selfested, and in many cases, extremely old and cynical elected officials is, I mean,

it's a pretty hotly contested race. I think that is maybe the most deranging Democrat style tick that we've got. The idea that sort of, that like, Jim Clyburn, like, he deserves your respect, but you don't have to agree with him on everything. And it's like, you know, look, he's going to get elected until he dies, that is what he wants, whatever.

I don't have, what do I have to respect about that? Yeah, no, it's the same thing as the MAGA people where it's not enough to win in this case, like, you know, snuffing out and nullifying any insurgent movement in the party, everyone has to like it too. And like Jim Clyburn, we're going to trust that you won't look him up. We're going to trust that since he's old, you're going to assume he was a civil rights hero and not what he actually is, which is Black Mayor Quindy.

And you have to respect this incredibly cynical piece of shit. Yeah. There's also the other like Democrat element of this, which is that like Democrats love policing Democrat shit in public, which is maybe the most like obvious loser of a rhetorical tick that you could possibly have. Like the idea that like everybody needs to get on TV and like just get some shit off their chest about how they feel about this story. How much did you know about how old the president was? Did you know that that condition was worsening

literally every day without saying anything? And that all of that is beyond the fact that it's stupid and that it's insulting to people with real problems to hear, which is to say any other problem but that. You hear these people go on and on and on about this. There's also the fact that it's like, why are you fucking washing your laundry in public like that? If you guys need to get together at a really fancy golf resort and sit in a room and be mean to each other for a while, that's fine. I might even read about it in Politico when all of the things that you guys said to each other come out a week later, but I don't like that is not the

stand-in for what is actually happening. I mean, this is a media tick too, but the idea that like, this would be the sort of thing that Democrats are expected to like throw themselves into, elected public officials with actual power are supposed to speak on this instead of other shit officials with actual power are supposed to speak on this instead of other shit is perverse. David, that's a great point. And like one of the things that like I always, if I could have changed anything about the DSA during the Trump one years, it would be that their, you know, PSL had a rule like this. I always thought it was brilliant. You cannot adjudicate intra-organizational issues online. Because it just like, if someone's on the fence, they're like, I don't know, it seemed like I talked to a guy who wears a lot of buttons, he seemed annoying, is everyone

annoying? And then you go online and it just, these arguments about these things that you have, you could not possibly give a shit about, not policy, not anything like that. Just like aesthetics. Yeah, it is. It is like listening to someone you don't know, complain about their job. Yes. You know, I'm not saying don't argue about those things. Any organization that's trying to do anything is going to have internal disputes, but keep them fucking internal. Yeah. But not even just for the reasons of like message discipline or like winning campaign. Obviously it helps for that too, but just also because like

if you sit down next to me on the train and you're like, so this is what I told Dennis because he's been on my ass all week. I need to know who Dennis is or else this isn't gonna work for me at all, you know? That's elementary. But the other thing though is this isn't like, oh we think there's one way of doing things, they think there's another, this is the court of disagreement. It's like, all these established Democrats, like this Bacary Sellers asshole who has been a paid surrogate of the Israeli lobby since he was a college freshman, they're basically going on TV and being like, I am such a good Democrat that I ignored all the warnings,

the obvious warning signs of Joe Biden's senility. I just, I will never criticize the equally ancient and even more cynical James Clyburn because I, I like, I know how things work. It's like if a bunch of mafia guys went on TV and said, I would never snitch. I would never talk about how my boss ordered me to kill this guy. I would never talk about all the stuff I stole. And it's like people can see you. People can hear you. People can see that you were on TV and bragging about how much of a soldier you

were, that you lied to them for the previous five years before this. Well, Felix, I think we see like a very similar phenomenon going on in like a lot of the shit I've seen this week from people who worked on Kamala's campaign, who were just like, I hope the uncommitted voters feel remorse. But like they show a shocking lack of guilt over what they did to the country. Just like you were working for the campaign, like who had more power in this equation. And what they all say is like like Kamala Kamala made all kinds of concessions to the Palestinian movement And the thing is like I don't think we should credit them with just lying about this

I think for them and they're like DC Ambitious like social climbing way. I think they're like in their moral universe What Kamala did was a huge concession by saying like taking a phone call, basically, hopping on a zoom with someone from Michigan. Yeah, exactly. Like I think that that's why they can't understand why people who are activists or like anti-war activists were not did not get on board because they were like, well, Kamala said the word ceasefire and said too many people have died. But like also made very clear that the arms shipments would continue and there'd be no daylight between her and Biden on this particular issue. So I think like they feel this sense of betrayal. And like that's why these same people now that like, you know, some of their like more weak need cohorts are sort of coming out of the woodwork to be like, hey, we got this wrong. Sorry, we lied to everyone about his physical and mental fitness to run for reelection in the most important election of our lifetimes. It was literally the stakes of democracy or fascism. Yeah, we kind of

screwed that up. Like I think in their moral universe, they're continuing to help lose the election by telling the truth about what happened, belatedly, for self-serving cowardly means. That's the self-serving thing I think is really important in terms of like trying to find a way to read this story. Like obviously the smart thing to think is really important in terms of like trying to find a way to read this story like obviously The smart thing to do is just like you know the baseball season is going on the NBA playoffs are happening Don't pay attention to this particular shit like Know the basics of what's going on But like have you watched the Timberwolves like that is a really interesting basketball team you should try that instead

But I think if you are gonna follow this the thing that I think is instructive But I think if you are going to follow this, the thing that I think is instructive, I mean, to your point, Will, in terms of like the way that Kamala campaign people have like who they've chosen to blame and the theatrical way in which they've done it, I certainly think that the way that this has been framed by not just like by elite media people, but by people inside of the Democratic Party power structure that have positions that they don't want to relinquish, despite the fact that all they do is fucking lose in ways that make everybody's life worse. Look at who they are saying is responsible for this and standing up and being like, I believed it when Joe Biden's 71-year-old chief aide, who will never work in politics again,

told me this thing that was very obviously untrue. That is a very easy thing to say, because winding up on the wrong side of Dr. Jill Biden is not going to hurt you if you want to stay working in democratic politics. Not anymore, anyway. It was clear that there was in that Biden family, this fanatical keeping of score. I mean, this is, I guess, pretty common politics shit, but like keeping a score of like who was ever rude to you. So like you said, if like, I don't remember which Castro was Julian Castro is like rude to you on a stage. Like that guy will never be able to get into a party that you're hosting every day. That's fine.

That's your business. But in this case, it's like if you if you're blaming activists or you're blaming this, the inside circle of a guy who will never be president again. That just acts as people whose family members were actively being killed by American bombs. Yeah, right. So in that case, I mean, it is definitely telling that that is like somehow putting yourself on the side of being like, I bet you whatever, like just saying the most depraved possible shit about Palestinian Americans with real skin in the game and what's going on over there, because that is somehow safer than being like, I think that we should have put a person on stage at the convention.

Like, the simplest little bit of pandering that they can't even in retrospect admit would have been the right move. I wonder to what extent I mean because I did this guy who said this he's awesome by the way a friend on a locked account showed me something that I had never seen before because this was from the week. Feelings I have a quote right in front of me. Yeah. Just read the quote because you're not going to be able to guess this. Omar Moussa a spokesman for Biden's campaign criticized

the news media for making note of the president's stumbles and I just had the context here is this is awesome. Omar Moussa, a spokesman for Biden's campaign, criticized the news media for making note of the president's stumbles. And I just had the context here is this is a New York Times article from July 4th of last year, headline Biden stumbles over his words as he tries to steady reelection campaign. So Omar Moussa, a spokesman for Mr. Biden's campaign, criticized the news media for making note of the president's stumbles. Quote, it was clear what President Biden meant when he was talking about his historic record, including a record number of appointments to the federal bench, he said,

referring to the president's comments about being a black woman. By the way, I'm proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, first black woman, served with a black president. I'm proud of the first black woman in the Supreme Court. There's just so much. This is not news and the media has passed the point of absurdity here. You got that right. You got that right. When Joe Biden got on stage, experienced medical death and then said, we defeated Medicare,

real American voters knew what he was talking about. What? When Biden got up there and said, when I was on a soul train and then we saw an outline of Joe Biden walking out of the room and then Joe Biden's physical body walking over to it and saying, hey, get back here. Yeah, everyone knew what was going on. It just shows how out of touch you are that you think that doesn't happen every day in America. This guy is awesome. We used to exaggerate that like Simone Sanders' job

was to go on all the morning shows and go, you know what he meant. But it is literally the job. But I wonder with a guy like him, it's the same thing as that Federman guy, Trey Easton, who takes anything that will reveal that he works for Federman out of his Twitter profile. These people know, at the very least, that most other people they encounter find the genocide, Israel's

genocide, America's complicity in it, not complicity, America's facilitation of it, and specifically their employers' singular roles in whitewashing it and keeping it going and everything, they know that most people find that repulsive. They might even on some level maybe think it's kind of bad. So they know enough to obscure things. This music guy knows that, well, most people don't approve of this, so I need to lay the blame on someone else. I wonder if it's just, this is just like a mental barrier so he never has to think, hey, what was I doing during that time?

Or does it go that far? I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I'm inclined to read it through that basically like, what are the things that you know that you can't say? Not in some sort of like conspiratorial being like, beware of like, who can you criticize? Like you can criticize Joe Biden now.

Like he's, he's not running for office again. Although, you know, obviously I hope he is, has the 15 year life outcome that we were talking about earlier. The I think it's, I think just think that would be, I'd really love to see what he's like at 97. But I think, I mean, a lot of people like, I, you know, a couple of weeks ago I said the most honorable thing he could do is just die at this point But like I really want to make sure Joe Biden lives as long as possible

He still loves to go on TV and say shit I mean, I maybe this will be the end of that but it was like weeks ago He went on the view like last week and was like I would have won too Like you should have seen the shit I had planned for the second debate. I was gonna do coin magic I would have won too. Like you should have seen the shit I had planned for the second debate. I was gonna do coin magic. Well, I want to read a little bit from the actual,

the Jake Tapper book. This is what was excerpted in the New Yorker last week. I just want to read a few things from it. It says, it begins, President Joe Biden got out of bed the day after the 2024 election, convinced that he had been wronged. The elites, the democratic officials, the media, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, they shouldn't have

pushed him out of the race. If he had stayed in, he would have beaten Donald Trump. That's what the polls suggested he would say again and again. His pollsters told us that no such polls existed. There was no credible data they said to support the notion that he would have won. All unspun information suggested that it would have been a loss, likely a spectacular one, far worse than that suffered by his replacement as the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris. And it says here, what was going on in private was worse. While Biden on a day in, day out basis could certainly make decisions and assert wisdom

and act as president, there were several significant issues that complicated his presidency. A limit to the hours in which he could be reliably functioned, and an increasing number of moments when he seemed to freeze up, lose his strain of thought, forget the names of top aides, or momentarily not remember friends he'd known for decades, not to mention impairments to his ability to communicate, ones unrelated to his lifelong stutter. And I just like, I love seeing everything that I've we've been we've been talking this way about Joe Biden for at least six or seven years. I mean, like, now it's in the New Yorker. Now everyone

now everyone can talk about it. Like, no, he doesn't have a stutter. His brain is on the fritz. It was an abomination. One prominent Democratic state strategist who publicly defended Biden told us. He stole an election from the Democratic party. He stole it from the American people. Well, I mean, in your role as publicly praising him while this is going on, you also helped do that. Yeah, I mean, of course, Tapper and Dobson let everyone go anonymous here. Why wouldn't they? anonymous here. Why would they? Which is, I mean, if this is what you're saying, that he fooled everyone, shouldn't you? I mean, Richard Clark went on TV, he did an apology

tour going, I'm sorry, I let 9-11 happen. You can't be like, Hey, I, you know, state legislator from wherever the fuck you can't do that. And Tapper and Thompson will let you. They won't go. No, you can't be in this unless you are named and attributed. Yeah. I mean, that's the other bit of it, too, where it feels kind of like we used to talk about this a lot at the old side. I mean, to a certain extent, the way that ESPN will like sort of carwash a story in a way where you come up with the thing,

you come up with the two sides on it, you have people sort of carwash a story in a way where you come up with the thing, you come up with the two sides on it, you have people sort of debate it and in that process of debating you make it a story. But at no point is anybody involved actually like committed in any way to any of it. But like these are basically by letting this person say something that like kind of exonerates themselves, kind of implicates themselves also at the same time, but in a way that does not tell you who that person is or what their actual role was or any of the things that they actually did. You're doing them an incredible favor. Anonymous source close to Tyrese Halliburton defends his father coming on the court. Mistakes were made. I should never have given his dad a sword.

I should never have given his dad a sword. Okay, well, another thing I really like about about this about the but this excerpt to the story and this whole story in general, is that a great deal of it. And in fact, like a hinge point in American history is George Clooney, which is very appropriate. I mean, it says this is this is comments he Biden made mentors. He mentors these those historic kids from Parkland on their march in their lives against gun violence.

Biden said, stumbling a bit. I met with every one of those kids and they really appreciate what you did, George. Not a joke. This is him talking to Clooney before the Clooney. What kind of joke would that be? Hey, hey, nice job with those Parkland kids. Wink, wink. Yep. You say it in a Bill Maher voice, it comes off as a Bill Maher joke, but it's not still not funny. Yeah. On Thursday, June 13th, Clooney landed at a private airfield in the Los Angeles area. On Saturday, he rolled to the Peacock Theater, he rolled to the Peacock Theater, capacity 7,100, roughly four hours before

the event was set to begin. He and Roberts had hundreds of photographs to take with thousands of attendees whose perks depended on their contributions from $250 to $5,000. The event would once again set a record as the biggest fundraiser for a Democrat in American political history, raising more than $30 million. Clooney looked to the side and saw Obama walking in. Greyer, but still spry and electric. A few minutes later, a Secret Service agents entered the room and

announced that President Biden had arrived. Biden hobbled out from around the corner. Clooney knew that the president had just arrived from the G7 leaders summit in Italy that morning and might be tired, but holy shit, he wasn't expecting this. The president appeared severely diminished as if he'd aged a decade since Clooney last saw him in December 2022. He was taking tiny steps and aid seemed to be guiding him by the arm. It was like watching someone who was not alive, a Hollywood VIP recalled. It was startling and we all looked

at each other. It was so awful. You know George, the assisting aide told the president, gently reminding him who was in front of him. Yeah, yeah, the president said to one of the most recognizable men in the world, the host of this lucrative fundraiser. Thank you for being here. George Clooney, the aide, got terrified for the president. Oh, yeah, Biden said, Hi, George. There's a lot of stories in this where it's just Biden greeting everybody by

saying, Hey, bub. And people are like really taken aback by it or weirded out by it. But I do like the idea that that's just like the stage, like the season of his life that Joe Biden is in right now. It's just like anybody that he sees, he like pats them on the back. It's like, great job. Thanks so much. Just a sense of other way.

I saw people defending this one line of attack was like, oh, so George Clooney ruined America because you know, Biden didn't recognize what a big deal he was. And it's like Clooney had known him for decades. He was hosting the fundraiser. He was hosting the fucking fundraiser. Well, Felix, I'll go further than that. I'll go further than that. If you were an American above the age of generously 10 and you don't recognize George Clooney, it's because your brain is not working.

Right. I mean, George Clooney has been incredibly famous for like 40, fuck it, 45, like almost as long as Joe Biden's career. But someone defended this by posting the picture of George Clooney with like dyed hair. And he really, really looks like, you know, like a Lebanese construction magnate with dyed hair. It's awesome. I think you should do that all the time. But they were like, well, that's what these scumbags won't tell you is that his hair was dyed.

And that's why Biden didn't recognize him. And it's like, okay, if your mom was wearing a hat, would you recognize her? Like just the idea that he's like, Biden knew he was a dapper Dan man, but he was using a different pomade that day. He's the goddamn Potter Familius. Yes. Well, I don't want f**k, god damn it. I'm a dapper Dan man. Watch Watch your language young fellow. This is a public market. Now, if you want dapper Dan,

I can order for you. Have it in a couple of weeks. Well, hate this place. Geographical oddity. Two weeks from everywhere. Going ahead earlier, this is they were talking about the Podjons. The second encounter came a year and a half later on Friday night, April 26, 2024, the evening before the White House Correspondents Association dinner. Favreau was among the influencers invited to visit with the president at the White House, as were two of his co-hosts, Dan Pfeiffer and John Lovett. That night to Favreau, Biden seemed to have aged 50 years and 16 months. He was incoherent. His stories

were meandering and confusing. Something about Iraq? What exactly was the point of this? He's told one story twice. After the president left the group, Favreau asked the staffer about his demeanor. Oh, no big deal, the staffer said. The president just must have been tired. It was nighttime at the end of a long week. No big deal. Oh, he's tired. So he's he sounds like Abe Simpson. What the fuck? I see why they're calling you an influencer, Dan. Jesus fuck. Yeah, this is I don't want to step on this if you were going to quit. I haven't read this particular excerpt, but one of the bits that gets pointed out in this is how insane it was that the Biden campaign was like, we want to do the debate at 9 PM. The later, the better. Joe

likes it late. When they knew that this was the case, they had them coming to do the walkthrough at the studio, basically at 840, more or less the way that I arrived to a podcast, three minutes later than I should be and slightly sweaty. That's how he showed up for a presidential debate long after his actual bedtime. One more. When the event ended, the three men stood. Obama began to walk off stage, but Biden walked to the edge after waving and giving a thumbs

up, stopped and stared blankly at the crowd. Obama turned back and grabbed Biden's arm, then guided him backstage. He later explained he just wanted to get the hell out of there, but he didn't want to leave Biden alone up on the stage. Biden folks insisted that the president was just basking in the glow of a supportive audience, and they called that clips of the moment cheap fakes, a term for video content that had been deceptively edited and or taken out of context. But even some supporters present in the arena wondered what was going on.

I love how they have a term for videos that are true, but it's looks bad. So it's not fair. It is also one of those things where like, there's going to be a lot of fake videos in our future, you know, like, I don't think you have to have like a great deal of foresight to see that like a bunch of fucked up AI generated shit is going to be in our discourse for the foreseeable future. Lying about something that you know is real and saying that it's one of those is not the most irresponsible thing that we're discussing here, but extremely fucking irresponsible. Like just not, it's not worth it.

Like that's the whole point with all of this that I keep coming back to is like, even though, I mean, this is the whole thing, whatever it is that Biden thought about whether he could have won, he dropped out because somebody convinced him in that moment that there was no way that he could win. That is also part of the story. Like that's real. He did believe it. And then he stopped believing it, which, you know, is a topic for another

day, what kind of brain does something like that. But in all of this, it's just like, risking all of this shit, like telling all of these lies in some way that is like likely to diminish trust in your party and the institution and everything that you're supposedly running to uphold doing all that for this reason and this guy is i mean it is disqualifying i could see why none of these people would want to put their name on the ship david that is that is something that i kind of uh we talked about it i think around the time trump was inaugurated that there was one last bit of magic left in the deep state, right? One last round of like, we will fucking zap your account if you post this article.

We will use all our remaining favors in Big Tech or wherever. We will do a full court media press that makes it sound like you are a Russian agent if you do this. The last bit of magic, they use that to just get another year out of this hobbling old piece of shit, the most spiteful and selfish fucking idiot of the latter Cold War to post Cold War era in Joe Biden. Not for any goal, not for any, you know, hey, we have to keep Trump out so we can keep this whole thing going, he's gonna fuck it all up. Just because not doing it would make Joe Biden sad. And now Trump is president, no more intramural

deep state softball. I mean, you could just see the way in which all of that just melted away to the, I mean, this is just this idea that because Trump, who again, like we're talking a lot about Joe Biden, Donald Trump, extremely fucking bad, right? Like is a dangerous, awful, stupid dude gets 49.8% of the vote. And everybody decides at that moment that they're just like going to slam open the ghost containment tank from Ghostbusters and let all the fucking slimers out.

Kevin Spacey is getting a lifetime achievement award at Commdol. They were willing to do a little bit of that fuck shit to defer that for four years, but not on principle or whatever. As soon as they like, like, I did. Like, I guess you're probably like,

I ran out of juice. Yeah. I mean, like a big thing, a big thing I'm thinking about, like in terms of like the timing now we're like, it seems like en masse, like all the pundits who promoted them are like, how could we have got this so wrong? I mean, like, I'll talk about the last one in a second, but like, why, like, why is a guy like Jake Tapper, like, why is he making this crusade now

to be like the Democratic Party lied to you and doomed this country to a second Donald Trump term? I mean, I think if anything, this is an indication of the overall and total weakness of the left in this country. It's because like, if they thought that there was any viable movement in the Democratic Party that could replace all of these people who did this to the country, they wouldn't be doing this.

They would still be defending Joe Biden because he was brain dead back in 2020. And we all remember they moved heaven and earth to make sure that he won that primary. So like the fact that like they feel safe and like it's safe to announce the truth of this now and like, you you know make and then like leave Joe Biden's legacy in tatters because they know for certain there is nothing there is no alternative that's going to replace them or other people who did this or their jobs. Right. They can they can accept it and basically like live it out as an intramural dispute. Like where it's basically people talking about whether they were early or late,

whether you were too loyal or not loyal enough, whatever. But the idea that any of this somehow like is a sufficiently damning indictment that the people, those anonymous sources shouldn't be allowed to say the shit they say against. There were polls for years that said that Biden's biggest vulnerability going into reelection is that Americans thought he was too old to be president. And then like that only just got confirmed over and over again every time he opened his mouth or was seen on television or in public. We all know now that everyone around him and everyone in the media lied about this for years. And now that these same people are going to be like, we were wrong, but like we shouldn't lose our jobs. And like

also please heed our advice about what the Democratic Party should do and not do in the coming years leading up to the next election. Yeah. If there was any if they were afraid of AOC or for that matter, Bernie, who spent the last two years of Biden utterly fucking disgracing themselves, Bernie, especially if they were afraid of any of that at all, they would be making AI videos of Joe Biden, like breakdancing and be like, look, don't you feel like assholes now? He won the 2021 NBA slam dunk contest. He leapt over a Lamborghini. Oh, what's this?

It's just Joe Biden at the X Games? Well, I mean, like the last thing I want to read, like the media reactions to this is just a brief selection from Maureen Dowd. And the headline here is the tragedy of Joe Biden. I'm going to talk just a little bit about why I think this is so obscene. She says here, the denouement of Joe Biden is unbearably sad. The Irishman who could spend 45 minutes answering one question lost his gift of gab. No, he can still do that. He's better than that than he's ever been.

I was going to say, like he's like the 45 minutes thing is non-negotiable. That is, that is in perpetuity. By the way. Yeah, it doesn't matter if you ask him about like earned income tax credit or whatever. You are getting a really weird story about how he gave Sammy Davis Jr. a boarskin condom. Just kidding.

By the way, speaking of that. He was actually at Jim Bunnings perfect game, you know. Like, all right, that's cool, dude. I appreciate that. Speaking of that, like the perfect example of that is also this week Axios released the audio recordings of his session with the special prosecutor over the classified information shit. Remember that? It was the special prosecutor Robert Herr who declined to prosecute him because he literally

concluded that he was an old man. Yes. Or that he would seem like he seems like a kindly grandpa who doesn't often know what's going on I could maybe Chris can edit this into this but there's a there's a there's a clip from that where when he's like You know being deposed he gives a five-minute answer where he talks about doing archery with the president of Mongolia masterful honestly If that's if he was choosing to do the kind of like junior soprano thing, you're kind of like trying to get out of being prosecuted

by like putting on a bathrobe and walking to Patterson, New Jersey. It's not an unstrategic play, but I'm sure that Maureen Dowd is gonna lean into the sort of like tragic, Irish-y as well. I find it to be like a pretty offensive gambit at a couple of levels, but nobody does it like her. So I don't want to, I don't want to get in the way. Yeah. I mean, many, many people don't know this, but, uh, Joe Biden's brother was a changeling

and you know, he has to grow up knowing that his brother was taken by fairy people. Joe Biden who knew a selkie. Listen, Jack, I used to ride a selkie. He thinks I'm kidding. It's not a joke, man. Not a joke. Like this like mockish bullshit they do with Biden where it's like the man who used to send a postcard to a little boy who had a stutter is now pooping his pants.

And it's the saddest. Nothing sadder from 2023 to the present day. It happened at all. There's the saddest nothing sadder from 2023 yeah I can't think of present day yeah happened at all there's nothing close to this sad well yeah I mean she loves this she says yeah the Irishman who could spend 45 minutes answering one question lost his gift of gab the father who saw two of his children die and to spin into addiction wilted under the ongoing stress especially when hunter Biden my only living son, as Joe called him, got tangled in the legal system. The gregarious poll, who loved chatting up lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, ended

up barricaded in his Rehoboth Delaware house with COVID, furious at everyone, proclaiming his oldest friends disloyal naysayers. He was fuming at nearly everyone except Jill, Hunter, and the cordon sanitaire of aides who had fueled his delusions that he could be reelected despite his feeble and often incoherent state at 81. And saddest of all, the man known for his decency, empathy, humility, and patriotic spirit was poisoned by power. Losing the ability to see that, and clinging to office, he was hurting the party and country he had served for over half a century, and hurting himself, ensuring a shellacking in the history books. It's the oldest story in tragedy, hubris. And like,

this is what I find so obscene about this, because like, you can, like, in describing what she did, you can ascribe a lot of, I don't know, dramatic terms to what's going on, but I will not accept anything that talks about this in the terms of tragedy. Because tragedy offers a dignity and a certain kind of a faded dignity to it, that has a sort of a poetic gloss to it, where you're like, your greatest strengths are ultimately your undoing. Or in attempting to do the right thing,

you end up causing the worst possible outcome. This is what the Greeks meant by hubris. But none of this was hubris on Joe Biden's part. This is like, this would be like describing Donald Trump if he ever gets sent to prison as a tragic story because a man who dedicated his whole life to doing crimes. Yes. Who would have thought that he would end up in prison alone and shackled in a mattress and in the sing-sing.

But no, it's like the outcome that Joe Biden authored and people around him is not the result of tragic hubris or destiny or anything like that. It is only the product of the person he's been his entire life, which is a remarkably venal and cruel human being. Yeah. I think that this is, I know that that's part of the gig and this is what Maureen Dowd gets paid the big bucks to do. But this is another one of those things that sort of is crazy making, not just in how over the top, the particulars of the writing and all that is, but there's also this other element of it where it's like,

I know what this is actually about. Like I lived through it and I watched it happen. It's not fucking King Lear. Like this is, it and I watched it happen. It's not fucking King Lear. Like this is broad slapstick comedy with like terrible, terrible downstream human consequences at the other end of it. But the idea of trying to make it, I mean, this is obviously part of what the political media does. I don't think that, like certainly goes back to John F. Kennedy. I think it goes back a good deal further than that, but the Kennedy stuff is the first bit. And again, this is sort of doing Biden a favor by association, where like the fucked up things that happened to a fucked up guy are later sort of retconned into the grandeur of the office and the country and the ambitions of that person. When like,

I think that when you can see and you can see it in a way that you couldn't see it if you were consuming political media during John F. Kennedy's term, that like you can see how like grubby and venal like you said, all of this actually was and so trying to put a coat of shellac on it and like put it on the mantle as like more proof of how important this office is, is like, it's, it reads as a taunt to me. Like, it's like telling me that this thing that I saw is something much bigger and more significant and less obviously preposterous than it was. Yeah. Yeah. On my birthday, I told my daughters, say, tell me how much you love me. And Cordelia, she wouldn't say, she wouldn't say it. She said,

she said, you're doing fine, dad. I was going to give you the King of France. Get out there on the Heath. Well, that is a great point about like how dignified and full circle tragedy is. No, this is I mean, this is it is a perfect tale. It is full circle. It is emblematic of everything in his life. It is a complete farce

Which is what his entire fucking career and life was the guy who was on the wrong side of every fucking major Decision since before Jimmy goddamn Carter He finally gets the thing that he ran over every to everyone that he he did all of this for although all those handshakes with all the guys who deregulated the financial sector, who fucked everything up, all those windbreakers he got from AIG, he finally had it right. And the fucking court justice that he like installed, like, or basically oversaw the installation of despite the fact that he was a known

sex creep at that time, is just undoing the few laws that he's able to pass moment after moment. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, no, it ends with him. Not even like most of the days waking up and being like, oh, man, I got to get back to Delaware so I could file my taxes because I'm still the senator. Oh, fuck. Then no, it's farce. It is the perfect American farce

for the most farcical figure in modern American politics. The man who, no single man did this, but one of the people you can point to when you ask, why are we here? Why is Donald Trump in there? Why is there like this whole contingent of tens of millions of Americans who are like, medicine's fucking gay, I hate it.

Why are things like this? Well, there's several people you could point to, but one of them was just president. And his life, his career, it ended just as farcically as the rest of it. So had an opportunity to rewrite his ending. I mean, if there's anything tragic about it, he talked about being a bridge president, he could have like gotten elected, like overseen the prosecution of Donald Trump, handed things off to his vice president and like probably honestly have had a decent enough legacy if he got out of there before 2023.

The hagiography about him, if he did that, oh my God, because yeah, Kamala would be like, literally, you would get fired if you admitted you voted for her by twenty twenty nine. Like you would like she would be the most detested president ever. But he would have like the Obama shine and also like, you know, the one humble man in politics. I wish he ran again. Somehow that's not that's like of all the dumb archetypes that we have,

that's not a thing that it used to be, the idea of being like he'd served and now he was going to go back to the farm. We don't have any, we need to like build a healthy respect for people that like fuck off and retire at some point. Like that is just culturally a massive failing. Like a few senators that actually left,

I remember like there was a story a couple years ago that was like basically like a sort of almost a photo essay. It was like they retired from the United States Senate and are still alive and they found like the six people that had done that. And it was like Barbara Boxer looking great on a patio. They're like, I ride my bike all the time. It's awesome. Like, yeah, that's cool. More people should do that. That's great. David, that is one of my theories about like why everyone is so insane now. There's again, a lot of reasons and you chiefly can blame phones. But one of the sort of like side factors for the

instantification of the American stupid. No one goes away anymore. Yeah. Nothing ever ends. No one ever fucking goes away. Nothing happens to anybody. This is the bit that I this I find especially challenging. The idea that like Rudy Giuliani, America's most convicted man,

I could I know a bar that I could go to tonight and see him there. Like it's not even fucking hard. He's there all the damn time I could go to tonight and see him there. Like it's not even fucking hard. He's there all the damn time. I could walk to it. And that like seeing all of these people get convicted. I mean, Trump certainly being like the single- I've seen his only one who's ever gone away in the- Right.

23 or 30 years of American history. I've wondered about it because I do feel like there's a way in which like everything that's happening is like a long backlash to six months of 2020 when there were consequences for powerful people doing fuck shit in power and I wonder sometimes about how I mean we know that like What it's like Harvey and like Matt Lauer are like basically the only guys that have ever lost their jobs about it Like Harvey Weinstein's mad because he's in jail. Matt Lauer presumably has like hundreds of millions of dollars and is just like trying to get, like he's willing to like sit behind a news desk in a movie and be like, I'm willing

to play a newscaster. I have done. Oh my God. Matt, yeah, Matt Lauer is like, imagine the indignities he's going through. He's like going to his Becca stand and he's like, I read your script. I know you didn't send it to me, but I saw there was a character named Evil Jew 3. I think I would be good for, no, you don't have to pay me.

I'll pay you. I have a lot of camera experience. I would like an office that has some sort of crazy Dr. Evil locking by remote contraption. That is in my contract. that is important to me. He's going to Azerbaijan and he's like, I'm interested in starring in your production, The Lies of the Armenian.

I can play an Armenian, I can play a Turk, I can play whatever, just I need to get back in the game. Someone from- Get back in. He's got a publicist planting a story that's like, he actually gets kicked through a window by Steven Seagal in a movie. It's not gonna be released in all of Russia, but it did happen to him.

That's his route back. He's gonna be like, Steven Seagal is gonna try to capitalize off of the sound of freedom and make an anti-human trafficking movie despite being a fan of human trafficking. Matt Lauer will play like the pedophile that like someone selling a kid to. My people they say you could tell a whole man's life by how he takes his last breath.

We don't live with honor, we die with honor. Matt, please give me an honorable death. Oh my, oh Will, everyone now is like Stephen Seagal at the end of the perfect weapon. Absolutely. You think you think you're getting rid of them. You're like, I saw the knife go through his big fat gut. Then another Stephen Seagal pops up and says, you did well for me, brother. You handled everything great, brother. So I'm sorry to see you like this, Joe? That is the mirror. Infinite Steven Seagals popping back up. All right. Let's leave it there for today's show. But before before we go, I Dave, Dave, I do want to David, I want to ask

you one thing in your capacity as one of America's premier sports analysts. Sure. I'm a little worried about this one. Go ahead. Knicks, Pacers, Eastern Conference finals. Who you got? I am cautiously picking the Knicks in this one.

Um, I have gone back and forth on them. I am not a Knicks fan. I'm a lapsed New Jersey Nets fan, but New York city is so much more fun when the Knicks are good. Not just in terms of like the bing bong community climbing on the moving buses. Like that's honestly like they can knock themselves out. That's fine. I'm not like hanging out outside the garden for that.

But I was very impressed with like this is my coworker, Giddy Nathan pointed out that Jalen Brunson has mastered both all of the coolest and all of the wackest things about basketball. And he was doing just the cool shit in the last series, like just like finding weird spaces and making weird shots. If he decides to get back into the like falling down and whapping his head around a lot stuff, I think this could go wrong. But I think I like is I like we'll tell in game one, like the tenor of the series, if Jalen Brunson is on the is literally on the floor

for like X amount of minutes per game like I don't know like I think they're gonna face face troubles, but No, I even I just gotta say I was in high school the last time the Knicks were in the Eastern Conference finals I I am the rest of the people of the number one city in the world or what riding the crest a great wave right now. And we're experiencing something that we have not felt in a long time. The Pacers are a very difficult team. They're like the Celtics, but they make three point shots. Yes. So like they're like they're like a better version of the team we just beat in some ways, not as good a defense. but all I got to say is I really hope Amber Frost and I's friendship will emerge from this series unscathed. We've lost a lot of good friendships that way for sure.

I will say that even if I don't care about the Knicks, I have disliked the Indiana Pacers for longer than I think any other pro sports franchise with the possible exception of the St. Louis Cardinals. And I have to trust my instincts on that one. But like, I feel like I've been right about that long enough that I have a rooting interest, even if I'm not, uh, you know, card carrying member of the Bing Bong. Well, I think it's going to be a, I'm rooting for a Knicks Timberwolves finals so we can have the team that swapped players face off against each other. And then anything can happen. The Tibbs finals. He pictures of him from his younger days

when he had like kind of like longish permed hair and was coaching the Timberwolves. I definitely recommend looking up young Tibbs picks. All right. Just a little bit of sports chat to end the show. But you know, hey, it's my show and this is what's the only thing that's on my mind right this week. I appreciate you throwing me a bone. Easter conference finals. Hey, you're probably out there and you're saying, this barrel that I affix to my body every day, I'm starting to get splinters in my cock.

I wish there was something else I could wear. Well, we have something that might suit your needs. It could cover your torso, your dick and balls or respective genitalia, if you don't have that, I don't know. I haven't seen it. But it's at least going to cover like half your body and you can figure the rest out. That's what my mom always told me. Just keep going until you find something that will cover the lower half of your body and your genitalia. So go to ChopoTraphouse.com slash store. If you want the absolute best shirts that will allude to the accident, tragedy, prank on the USS Liberty in the 1960s, and maybe talk your way into the Operation Gladio intramural softball game.

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No, yeah, these are, you know, it doesn't matter if you are. You're you're you're going to your weekly Catan game with other losers and freaks who listen to this show, or you're approaching normals. Your social worker was like, would you like to go to my niece's quinceanera? You can wear this to both, and you're gonna get high fives and handshakes.

So yeah, check it out. What's the name of that website? One more time. Chapotraphouse.store. Oh, I fucked it up. Chapotraphouse.store. This will be the last merch line because I'm killing myself. Amazing. What did Will and Chris know? It was feeling already declining in 2025. All right, that does it for today's show, everybody. What did Will and Chris know? Already declining.

All right. That does it for today's show, everybody. Until next time, we'll talk to you again soon. Thanks again, David Roth. Please everyone check out and subscribe to defector if you'd like more David Roth. Thanks, guys. Thank you, everybody. Appreciate it. Talk to you soon. appreciate it. Talk to you soon. of the invasion of the Mongols into Europe in the 1400s and the 800s. And so we're out in the middle of nowhere and they're looking up and they only see this tiny line. You know, it's a 20-mile horse race with all these kids under the age of 16 on a bareback racing to come down. And, you know, there are sumo wrestlers doing everything they do. And so they walked over and they had a target,

Bale said, hey, a hundred yards away. And these gorillas were, you know, taking shots. And I think, I don't know if that's going to embarrass me or make a point, but I handed the bow and arrow. I'm not a bad archer. But the only problem I have word was I could pull back. So I had true luck, I hit the goddamn target. No, I really did.

Bails of hay, like 20 bales of hay with a big target in the middle of them. And so I didn't mean anything, but I turned the primary shanty to him. He was like, poor son ofumpetch couldn't have pulled back.