The Highwire with Del Bigtree - THE BIDEN SAGA

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

As Biden reemerges, questions turn to his ability to carry on his presidency amid rapidly declining health. We look at who has, and who is still providing cover for his mental acuity. As the nomination is promised to Kamala Harris by delegates without a vote of the people, does she have the popularity to win a general election?Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

I'm seeing two big things happening right now. I'm seeing the corporate media over the last two weeks is asking the public to ignore details and to ignore a lot of times their own common sense on historically significant events. And I'm also seeing a critical mass of everyday people stepping up in disrupting corporate media narratives in real time. Something we've never seen before of I don't think in this country. So these are just two trains heading towards each other. So let's unpack this a little bit from that media narrative that attempted to be woven into society continuously and it's not sticking. So as you said, Joe Biden, he announced just over this weekend here via a message on X, formerly known as Twitter, the social media platform.

He's dropping out. Hey, you know what? Just going to go ahead and drop out. And this was after he wasn't seen for five days. People were questioning his health. He said he came down with COVID. And it took a full seven, a week, full seven days for him to make an announcement. to the country. That was last night, as you showed. And a lot of people say this time really

looks back to the late 60s in the United States when there was political upheaval. There were assassinations of key figures. And at that time, Lyndon Johnson, who was facing a major uphill battle with the Vietnam War, all Americans wanted us out of this war. It was grinding on. Instead of putting out a message through a surrogate or just sending a letter to people, he went on TV that night and said this. future under challenge right here at home. With our hopes and the world's hopes for peace and the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties

other than the awesome duties of this office. the presidency of your country. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president. So you see there are a sharp, capable president leveling with the American people in real time and seeing the political headwinds that he's going to face

and saying, look, I can't do this. And obviously, that was the choice at that point. But let's go back now to, you were mentioning this, Democratic primary process and all the things that have been happening just over this last week. So let's go back to 2023 and we go to, I'm just going to keep calling it the corporate media because that's how I see it. That's how I've always seen it in my reporting. We go to the corporate media and when Joe Biden announced that he was going to run for re-election

last year, this is how they framed it. This is how in unison corporate media spoke. Look at this. All right. I really think that the mealy-mouthed Democrats, as I like to call them, and some of my progressive friends who would like to live in a fantasy land, they need to come back to reality. And the reality is this. The sitting president of the United States of America is a Democrat, a Democrat that would like to run for re-election so much so that he has declared a re-election campaign. In that case, the Democratic National Committee will not facilitate a primary process.

There will be no debate stage for Bobby Kennedy, Marine William, Marianne, or anyone else to stand on. So we're going to have another Bobby Kennedy and an empty chair in the debate, right? There will be no debate. Yeah, no debate. The Democratic National Committee administers the debates, and they're not going to set up a primary process for debates, for someone to challenge the head of the Democratic Party. Wow.

Words that now will live forever. And this process that she's speaking about is not unheard of. When a president says I'm going to go for a re-election, there's oftentimes not this primary process where they go through debates. But as we sit here today, obviously that was the wrong thing. choice that Biden could have been tested at that point by other very competent people to run for that nomination, but they weren't. And at that same time, it wasn't like people weren't questioning this. Here's mainstream reporting on Biden. It was saying that broad doubts about Biden's age and acuity.

That's what they were questioning at that point, spell Republican Opportunity in 2024. It's a poll and you read in here and it says the latest ABC News Washington Post poll says abroad 68 percent of Americans say he's too old for another term as president, views that put him in a trailing position against top Republicans and early preferences for 2024. So that's, I mean, that was the sentiment at the time. People were already saying this guy, he can't do this. So again, to skip this. Yeah, of four by the people. If 68% of the nation are saying, hold on a second, I don't think this guy is ready. Isn't our political system supposed to say we should be listening to the people? Let's show him the right. Let's have primary. You know, let's parade him out and put him under challenge and pressure and show them he is the guy that can do this job.

And so what else did we see? We saw the most professional, political person closest to Joe Biden, the second in command, Kamala Harris. And this is what she had to say during this whole time. Take a listen to this. Right. We have a very bold and vibrant president in Joe Biden. I work with Joe Biden every day. the work that under Joe Biden's leadership, our administration has accomplished, is transformative.

He is an extraordinary leader, and I wish that people could see what I see. I want to get to the heart of what I think you're raising, which you have said, is his age. This is someone who is tireless in terms of working on behalf of the American people. Thank God our president is in good shape and good health and is ready to lead in our second term. But if there ever is a problem, do you think that you could go tell the American public? Do you think in your role that you're in a position to do that? Of course, if necessary, but there's no need for that. I mean, before we even start having the conversation about Kamala Harris being a presidential nominee in this 2024 election, we have to really pump the breaks and ask, is

Biden is Joe Biden really mentally cognizant to be president of the United States right now? And someone needs to ask, I mean, Kamala Harris is doing the media rounds right now. Will any journalist ask, when did you first notice his mental capacity starting to decline? Because this is an obvious fact right now. And if she says at the debate, like the rest of the country, we have a problem. We have a big, big problem. So because the media, no one was able. This was a guarded man.

Obviously, he's the president. He's going to be guarded. But this was a guarded man with issues and declining mental capacity. And a person really not able to fully lead the country, as we now see. And so we look at the media. Let me, I want to clarify. I think the question could be even more pointed. At what point did you realize you were lying to the American public?

You said that you're with him every single day. He has now said to us, as everyone now recognizes, he's not fit to hold the office for another years. So at what point when you were saying he was, did you know that you were lying? And you must explain to us now, as though you would be on the Supreme Court, explain to us how you justify lying to the American people. How is that okay? And how can you promise us a transparent government that we can trust when you knowingly lied to us? I mean, it just seems like a really important, certainly a question that I'd be asking if I was, you know, allowed into the press room. And I think it has to be answered.

And here's the media aggressively defending. So let me look at check out this headline here. Our age of cynicism, when people really started to question this, and cynicism over age are the only things holding Biden back. So it's the public's fault. Okay. Well, last month, as, you know, every time in the last month or two, as Biden did a speech or as he appeared in public, we had compilations of him for getting his train of thought, tripping over his own feet. I mean, just over and over again. And so people are putting these videos together and going, look, look.

And so even at that point, the media, you can see these narratives. Here comes the next narrative, New York Times, how misleading videos are trailing Biden as he battles age doubts. And then another one here, White House jumps in. White House rips unflattering Biden videos as cheapfakes. So they tried to spin this idea of these failed attempts to divert this narrative away from this. And even this is one of my favorites. and people remember this from the COVID times, it's time to end the conspiracy theories

about Biden being replaced as a candidate. Okay, well, we don't have to believe the media because just over a week ago, Joe Biden was in Michigan while he was president and while we thought he was going to be going for the re-election campaign, and he said this. Take a look. A lot of speculation lately.

What's Joe Biden going to do? Is he going to stay in the race? He's going to drop out. Where's my saying? I am running and we're going to win. I'm not going to change that. Another one that conspiracy theorists got right. I mean, at this point, I think it should be a badge of honor if anyone calls you a conspiracy

theorist because I can't, you know, there's very little that, especially when it comes of COVID, these issues, if that's a conspiracy theory that he would drop out. And where are the apologies from mainstream news for calling people names and calling things, you know, fake news when they were the ones that were the ones that were. we're producing the lie. It's an incredible time. And I don't know if we'll ever hear the whole story about what happened because as you saw there, President Biden was all in.

He was extremely excited. And, you know, that did not match the enthusiasm we saw from him last night. And nor were there actually valid excuses of where he was. Why that went out on X, all of these things. I guess we'll never have those answer. But as we sit now, we have Kamala, we have Kamala Harris. And she's been endorsed by Biden. that was via X2, just a reply to his own message of the endorsements.

That's how we know that. But we have CNN. Harris secures enough delegate endorsements to win the Democratic presidential nomination. So let me break this down a little bit. She has pledged delegates. So technically they're obligated to support her with the party rules called good conscience. So this isn't legally binding. This isn't an ironclad situation.

But to be clear, these were delegates that were pledged to President Biden. He went out and actually campaigned to get that he didn't run a primary, but he got these delegates. And now, like when I, if I remember correctly, the way it's set up, those delegates are not obligated to, you know, vote for whatever Biden wants. They're obligated to represent the people that cast votes for Joe Biden. And so what do those people want? Did any of these delegates ask the constituent, those that actually voted, who do you want to? replace him? No, they didn't. They took a mandate from Joe Biden and said, now we're obligated to do what Joe Biden wants. That is not how this system was actually designed. You're obligated to do

what the citizens of this country that vote want. That's exactly what it appears happens. And again, this is in good conscience. It's a strong expectation they're going to vote this way. As you pointed out, August 7th, this virtual vote has been rushed. So the actual convention starts August 19th. So we'll see. I mean, anything could happen at this point. You know, obviously the media is fully behind Kamala Harris, and that's where it looks like it's going, but it's not ironclad yet. What is interesting, too, because there was a lot of other people in that running. We heard names like Gavin Newsom, Hillary Clinton, and people like this.

But we have Kamala Harris, and even as VP, this is an interesting pick because here's some headlines here. It's just 2023, an NBC news poll. Kamala Harris hits record low for VP net favorability. And the last time anyone in America had the right to vote for Kamala, she wasn't a top pick. It was in 2019. She actually dropped out of the race. And this was a poll at that point right before she dropped out.

And you can see Harris was basically 13% behind Biden and Elizabeth Warren and tied with Bernie Sanders. So not really a top frontrunner there. But again, that was a different time. And so we're going to see how this turns out. But I don't think we're done reporting on the twist and judgment. turns here. I really don't. Yeah. Yeah, it's really fascinating. And I just wonder, you know, you know, will all these supporters of the Democratic Party step up and say, we're really giving our party a bad look here? You know, maybe we should do this snap poll that is being recommended by

many people, including Black Lives Matter, some way to reach out to the public. It just, it just seems clear from the get-go that this whole thing was set up. And the question was, did Kamala Harris know the entire time she was saying he's sharp, I stand by with him. When she was saying those words, was there ever a time where she knew, don't worry, just keep saying it, I'm going to hand it to you. Was she a part of selecting herself in this position and circumventing a democratic vote? I think that that's, will we ever know the answer to that? But it's a very important question when we look at what's taking place here.