The Megyn Kelly Show - Biden's Leverage Over His Left Critics, and Signs of Cognitive Decline, with Ruthless, John Ellis, and Dr. Dale Bredesen | Ep. 832

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

Megyn Kelly is joined by John Ellis, editor of "News Items" Substack, to talk about the likelihood President Biden steps aside as the nominee, how Biden holds the leverage and appears ready to use it, the Democratic politicians who are going public and what might happen next, and more. Then Dr. Dale Bredesen, author of "The End of Alzheimer's," joins to talk about the signs of someone having Parkinson's disease and other brain disorders, how cognitive conditions are diagnosed, the new advancements in tests that Biden could take to show he does not have any neurological disorders, and more. Then Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, and John Ashbrook of the Ruthless Podcast join to talk about the press failing to convince Biden to step aside and freaking out about it, the massive 180 we've seen from the corporate media when it comes to covering Biden's cognitive issues, the New York Times going all in against Biden's candidacy, the shocking reporting coming out now about Biden, what's really behind the press putting out negative stories about Biden rather than Trump, the left's lack of good options to get rid of Biden, the hilariously sad reporting about the private meeting between Democratic House members over whether they'll support Biden still, new alarming reporting about Biden's personal doctor, and more. Ellis- https://www.news-items.com/Bredesen- https://www.facebook.com/drdalebredesen/Ruthless- https://ruthlesspodcast.com/ Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. There is a war breaking out on the left in this country. On one side, the Biden family and some Democratic politicians like AOC, who appear fully on board with Joe Biden remaining the nominee and the president. Biden world remains defiant and many lawmakers are speaking out publicly in support of the current president. But then there's what's happening behind the scenes and what might happen next. A closed door meeting among Democrats is happening right now. It's so secretive. Lawmakers

are not allowed to bring their phones into the meeting. These are members of the House, and there's also a meeting on the Senate side of Dems only. Representative Mike Quigley, a Democrat who is one of the few to have publicly called for Biden to step aside, told The Hill many lawmakers are going to join him in his call for Mr. Biden to step down. Eventually, one anonymous Democrat saying they're waiting for polling to get back this week on what their constituents want because, quote, we're just petrified of losing it all. What they're saying is, and by the way, Quigley said, just wait. All right. He said it's going to happen. They're coming out. Just wait. And one of the reports was that the July 4th holiday set back some of the polling data. So they're biding their time right now so they can see just how bad it's looking for them.

They're worried about themselves in their House races and how bad the pull of Joe Biden downward is going to be. And then there's Senator Joe Manchin, the longtime Democrat. Now he's an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, a retiring moderate from West Virginia who said this yesterday. You just wait until this weekend. There'll be more comes out. I believe that we'll be able to have a better, clearer view of what's happening, His health and well-being, I think, should be everyone's first and foremost concern. What? What does that mean? Wait till this weekend? What's happening this weekend? Is it a few more days of the poll results coming in? Is that what he means? Who the hell knows? Why should we wait till this week? What's the magic thing about Saturday and Sunday? Meantime, the mainstream media remains strongly, strongly in the Biden must go camp. The New York

Times latest editorial was strong and direct and just came out. They are doubling down on their earlier calls for Mr. Biden to get out of this race. They right now in even stronger terms, Democrats, quoting here, who want to defeat Mr. Trump in November should speak plainly to Mr. Biden. They need to tell him that his defiance threatens to hand victory to Mr. Trump. They need to tell him that he is embarrassing himself and endangering his legacy. He needs to hear plain and clear that he is no longer an effective spokesman for his own priorities. Later, the Times editorial goes on, Mr. Biden, quote, does not seem to understand that he is now the problem. So what can we expect in the next few days? Joining me now,

John Ellis. He's a veteran of Fox News, where he ran the election night decision desk for a long time, and of NBC News and the Boston Globe. He's now the founder and editor of the News Item Substack, an absolute must-read for anyone in the know in the political and media world. John, welcome back to the show. Good to see you. Megan, thank you very much for having me. So what do you make of this latest Times drop, which, you know, apparently they're feeling the frustration

that their first editorial board urging that President Biden drop out did not do the trick. And this one points directly at Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and says as follows. For those at the helm of the Democratic Party, including those three, the time has arrived to speak forcefully to the president and the public about the need for a new candidate before time runs out for other candidates to make their case to the party's convention delegates. It says a whisper campaign is inadequate to the moment. Well, I mean, the time is running down, right? And all of this depends upon Biden agreeing to step down. So the question is, how much pressure can be brought to bear on him? And even if the maximum amount of pressure is brought to bear on him, will he in fact, you know, step aside? It doesn't seem to me at all clear, I might be wrong about this, but it doesn't seem to me at all clear that he is going to step aside, that he's just going to run out the clock and he's the Democratic nominee and that's

that. So one of the reasons that the editorial writers are as panicked as they sound is, you know, so far Biden has been successful running down the clock. And how long do you think they do have? I mean, the Democratic convention is in August, but the actual nomination will take place much earlier than the actual convention. I think it happens the first week of August because they're going to do it online and via Zoom. So there's really only a couple of weeks in my estimation of how they could or when they could sub him out. Yeah, there's a there's a little quirk, which is that the Democratic Convention is too late to meet the legal requirements for being on the ballot in Ohio. So what the Democratic National Committee has proposed, meaning the White House has proposed, is that they move the nomination vote up to early August in order to qualify for the ballot in Ohio. That fits, as it happens, that fits their current plan almost perfectly. And you have, obviously, after you have the Republican National Convention next week, and then you have the Olympics. So there are two major events that

help Biden run down the clock. And that appears to be their strategy. I, you know, it's for you and I, it's absolutely incredible that this is what they're going to do. But apparently this is what they're going to do. Meanwhile, you have top Democratic operatives like James Carville, who for a while now has been calling for Joe Biden

to not run for second term, predicting as follows. He had a piece out yesterday in op-eds saying exactly this, and then he went on television and doubled down, sought six. He's going to come to the conclusion that this is just not a good idea. And he's going to resist it, and he's going to listen to his family. He's already going, it's all the same. We blame the staff.

Then we blame the media. Then it's the elites in a Democratic party. Do I look elite? What the hell is elite about growing up in rural South Louisiana and going to LSU? And this is all across the country, And I understand it's all predictable. And he's got to go through this and he'll get there as soon as opposed to later. Sooner opposed to later. Where's your confidence come from?

You know, Chris, I can't. I don't predict things. I'm just telling you it's inevitable. He will come to the conclusion. People will get the message to him. He will understand. His family will understand. Do you agree with that, John? Right. It seems to me that in order to get Biden out, you need the core constituencies, the Democratic Party, to tell him to get out. Right. And the core constituency, the most important constituency of the Democratic Party are black Americans. They are the very core of the Democratic Party. They're the most reliable constituency. And, you know, if you had to look at one person, probably be Representative Jim Clyburn as to how

the Black community, Black voters are looking at Biden. It initially appeared that Clyburn was, you know, edging Biden off the stage. I'm not so sure that's where he is right now. Other members of Congress, black members of Congress, have Hugh Scott, and Representative Jim Rhodes went to Richard Nixon and said, you've lost the support of the party. You have to resign. And Nixon resigned. And that moment has to could make the march up to the White House. Schumer, Jeffries, I guess, would be the other two, but I'm not at all certain that Biden would listen. The op-ed that Carville put out mentioned Clyburn and what he said was, look, Clyburn. And what he said was, look, Clyburn spoke with New York Times opinion columnist Ezra Klein about a possible Democratic mini primary. And Carville says, I want to build on that. This is Carville. I want to see the Democratic Party hold four historic town halls between now and the Democratic National Convention in August, one in the South, the Northeast, the Midwest and the West. We can recruit the two most obvious and qualified people in the world to facilitate substantive

discussions, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Think the Super Bowl with Taylor Swift in the stands. The young, the old and everyone in between will tune in to see history being made in real time. I would advise presidents 42 and 44 to select eight leading contenders out of the pool of those who choose to run with Kamala Harris most definitely getting a well-earned invite. To me, this reads like a Democratic pipe dream, because as you pointed out 30 seconds ago, none of this can happen unless Joe Biden walks off stage left and all of his messaging publicly. There's been some reports that behind the scenes he's he says he understands he's only got a few days to prove his vigor to keep his role in this race. But every message publicly has been I'm not going anywhere. So what do you make of this plan that Carville outlines that,

you know, he correctly intimates Clyburn expressed an open mind to at least a few days ago? I mean, I think it's a great plan. You know, it would be fantastic television. It would be great for the Megyn Kelly show because you can talk about it after after each after each. I guess you would call it debate or forum. And I think it would actually be a very good way to find a new nominee. The problem, obviously, is that Biden may not buy in. Biden is the nominee unless all of the delegates decide not to go with him,

and there's no indication that that's the case. So, you know, it's a wonderful plan. And it gets right back to where we always are in this thing, which is unless Biden agrees to it, it's not going to happen. The weirdest thing about all this is we talk about it in terms of, you know, political tactics and political strategy. But what we saw in the debate, uh, 10 days ago or 12 days ago was a man incapable of, you know, stringing a sentence together, uh, lost, uh, the way he walked. I mean, it was unbelievable that that person could, A, run for president again, and B, actually be president. And the discussion about these tactics and strategy and so on and so forth sort of obscure the basic question, which is, is there anyone in the world who thinks that

Joe Biden can serve effectively as president in the calendar years 2025, 26, 27, and 28? And I believe the answer to that question is no, there is not a single person in the world who believes that. So the notion that he is going to run for president and he's going to stand up to the elites and he's going to show the press that he's the comeback kid and all this, and as it always is, the question, it seems to me, would be, shouldn't Joe Biden resign the presidency? That part, I really don't get it. And there are a couple, Ed Luce from the FT and a few others have raised this, but I'm really surprised that the basic thrust of all the commentary is, look, he shouldn't seek re-election, but it's fine that he serves out his term. And I don't know. I mean, Jeff Zients, his chief of staff, is a fantastic guy, and I'm sure is very competent, but we didn't elect Jeff Zients. We elected Biden and Kamala Harris. So I don't know.

It just, it's so weird to read this stuff every day, which I do for the newsletter. Yes. And you've done this for a career. So put it in perspective for us, John. Like what a tsunami this is. I mean, you've been in this business a lot longer than I have, and I've just been stunned at the amount of blowback from the press that is there to support him. They shouldn't be, but that's what their mission is, to support him and support Democrats. But it's on now, and I think we both know why it's on. They genuinely think he's going to lose.

It's not about it honoring their commitment to tell the truth, but just zooming out even from that point, put it in perspective, just the tsunami that he's facing and how extraordinary this is. Well, I, I mean, it's in the, in, just in the, in terms of the Biden administration, we, I wrote a column, a piece for my substack newsletter in july of 2021 and the piece said that biden is too old to seek re-election in 2024 uh if you look at a youtube video of him in 2008 in the debate in 2012 with paul ryan you know, the last days of the Obama administration

from 2008 to 2016, he sort of miraculously doesn't appear to age. He's sharp, he's, you know, he's verbose as he always is, but he seemed fine. He certainly seemed all there. And I'm looking at video of him in 2020 and 2021. It wasn't like I had like deep sources somewhere that were telling me that Biden's mental capacity had declined. It was evident by watching YouTube. So I write this. And the other thing was in the summer, June and July, started to hear, talk to people, all of whom said, gee, I'm not sure Joe can go beyond one term. Uh, you know, he's, he's really showing his age. So I write this, you know, piece for this newsletter and a lot of people, uh, attacked the, some of the readers of my newsletter attacked me for, I don't know, you know, being anti-Biden or something. But it was evident to

all of us in 2021, it was certainly evident to all of us in 2022, that Biden's mental acuity, which is apparently the phrase we use now, had declined and was visibly declining. And throughout that whole period, the press simply didn't cover it. It defies belief that all of those very smart, well-educated, experienced reporters covering the White House were surprised by Biden's mental decline in the last 90 days. It makes no sense. It's completely unbelievable. So they were complicit in keeping that story out of public discussion, and it blew up.

That whole complicity became apparent during the debate. And now there's furious backtracking. Biden has to resign. Biden is really old. Biden has lost it, so on and so forth. This is not a recent development. I see it almost as a covenant between the media and the White House where everyone knew about his decline. The media tacitly agreed not to cover it so long as the White House would not make fools of them, would keep him behind closed doors and shielded in a way that the big lie would not be exposed. And the White House fell down on the job. They agreed to this debate. They put him out there. He couldn't do it. And they no longer had any choice but to report on what we were all seeing. But really, that's secondary to their number one goal, which is to make sure a Democrat holds on to the White House. And once that was out in front of all of us, the panic set in that he could not do it. Now, everyone had seen what was suspected or actually seen behind the scenes. And they had only one mission and have

to this moment, only one mission, which is to win on November 5th. And if that requires knifing Biden now, then that's what that requires. I do want to show you something. We, um, we too took a look back early on at Biden's, at Biden over the years in much the same way you just outlined and you put in your piece in July of 2021. And it really is remarkable. I'll play it here and I'll tell the listening audience what dates we're talking about. But it's worthwhile to see it on YouTube for our YouTube audience. After the fact. Watch. The end result is they're about to knock my mother on the head with a lead pipe, shoot my sister, beat up my wife, take on my son. Jack Kennedy lowered tax rates, increased wealth. Ronald Reagan. Now you're Jack Kennedy. In America, we never bow. We never bend. We endure. We move forward. We are America and we are second to none. Your party wants to go socialist

medicine. My party is me. And socialist health care. Right now, I am the Democratic Party. And they're going to dominate you, Joe. You know that. I am the Democratic Party right now. Much more informed on the the motives of some of the political players and some of the... Beer brewed here. It is used to make the brew beer. Oh, Earth Rider, thanks for the great legs.

I wonder why... Don't mess with the men of America unless you want to get the benefit. It's right there in front of your very eyes, John. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't. I did no investigative reporting for the column. Let's put it that way.

And the other thing I think of is if, you know, if we say that there are 45 people who are credited to be in the Brady room, which is the White House briefing room. And let's say that Megyn Kelly is one of them. And let's say that Megyn Kelly is thinking about doing a story about Biden's age. And let's say that one of the White House flacks says, Megan, you can't do that, or we're going to do what? That's the part I don't get is that there has to be one or two reporters in the room who, when they're contacted by the White House or, you know, hectored by the White House to say you can't say that about Joe Biden's age or whatever, it would seem to me that that would sort of spur them to say it.

So that's another piece I don't understand about. James Rosen asked a question directly of Joe Biden about his age in the opinion poll showing that the American public thinks he's too old. And he was banned from the White House briefing room for eight months. Peter Baker of The New York Times, who's now reporting about the age issue post debate, had a post talking about how the White House had been threatening that they'd been calling. He had a mention about how the White House would call your editor if you if you asked questions about, you know, the about his age issues and Matt Taibbi, very respected journalist, now independent, wrote a piece saying complaining that they would contact your editor about an article you're writing is the equivalent of honor for most actual reporters to get, you know, the source calling your boss and saying, please don't have her write that. Please don't have him write that. And one final point on the story, Cenk Uygur, a liberal commentator, said he had interviewed Sam Donaldson about all of his years covering the White House, storied ABC reporter. And he said

his editor at ABC, every time that the editor got a call from the White House complaining about Sam Donaldson, would give Sam Donaldson a raise for doing his job. How times have changed. The other, I mean, one last thing about 2021, at the time that I wrote the piece, the data was that 60%, I believe it was, 60% of the electorate believed that Biden was too old to serve a second term. that AP and NORC, and this was last fall, their poll, and NORC is arguably the best polling organization in the world, their polls showed that 80%, 78% of registered voters believed that Biden was not capable of, quote, serving effectively as president in a second term. So it would seem to me that if 80% of the people in the United States of America think he's too old to seek re-election,

that the press corps would be all over that story. i one of the great mysteries of i mean like news items comes out to six days a week we have political items this comes out three days a week or four days a week depending you know i read this stuff all day long and when i read the norc poll with the ap uh in the fall last fall i well, that's the dam breaking, right? 80%. I mean, this has got to be a huge story. And it wasn't. There was no follow-up. And the only follow-up actually was other polling organizations sort of amazed that that was a number that AP and ORC had pulled, started to ask the same questions. And of course, it confirmed everything that the APNORC found. Although in some cases, it was 65%,

in other cases, it was 70%. But generally speaking, two-thirds or more thought that Biden was incapable of serving effectively as president in a second term. How that's not a story for the front page of every major newspaper in the country, I have no idea. Yeah, except you do know. So the latest Times-Siena poll shows 75%, I think it was 74%, continue to have those concerns greater in the Times poll, at least than ever post-debate. But I wanted to pick up on something you said, because earlier, the in the Times Bowl, at least than ever post debate. But I wanted to pick up on something you said, because earlier, the Times now is all in on getting Biden out. They're not the only ones, almost all the press. But you point out something important about the

black vote within the Democratic Party and looking at leaders like Clyburn, like Hakeem Jeffries. And they're going to be forced to make a decision here, right? It's sort of interesting to watch the Democratic Party being split between their core base of black voters and white elites. That really is their base now. The people who read the times, the people who live, you know, where I lived for 17 years on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, they're going to have to make a choice if things remain as they are with those two groups split over what to do. And what does history tell you will be the winning factor? Well, I think, I mean, it really is the outcome on, if we can call it this, I'm not sure we can call it this, but if you say on the black side

of the Democratic Party, the leadership, Clyburn, Jeffries, et al., if they come to the conclusion that Biden cannot, well, the Biden campaign can't continue and the Democratic Party needs to nominate someone else, their leadership will have, I think, a significant impact on what we might call the black electorate. On the other hand, if the black electorate says, no, you can't do that, I don't know that Clyburn and Jeffries have enough juice to say, we don't care what you think, we're just going to go ahead. So that's the, to me, that's the most interesting thing to watch in, you know, in terms of what the various democratic constituencies do. The black constituency is by far the most important

in my view. The elite constituency, which big money, college educated, you know, New York Times readers, et cetera, they, you know, they've decided. And Biden has turned that decision into a kind of faux populist campaign against elites, which to you and I seems preposterous, but that's the tactic. Again, what's missing from all this is, is he actually capable of serving as president now? It's not so much whether he can seek reelection, it's about whether he's capable of serving as president now. And until we get a medical examination that says yay or nay, which of course the White House is avoiding at all costs, it seems to me that's an open question. And since they are avoiding it at all costs, I think we have to assume that the news on Biden's mental capacity is probably not good. Yeah. A man who admits now he only works between 11 and four. He's a six hour president. Sorry, 10 and four, right? Six hour president. Let's be accurate. He's got to go. It was my math. 11 to four is five. That's wrong. 10 to four. Who says he now needs to not get any briefings or any taxing information past 8 p.m.

because he's prioritizing sleep. I mean, tell it to Vladimir Putin. We can only be attacked during six hours of the day and definitely not after 8 p.m. because that's when our president has to go night-night. And then your point about the black vote is very interesting if you look at what the president has done post-debate, where did he go this weekend? Philadelphia. Who did he sit with? He gave two interviews to black radio hosts in predominately black communities. He knows what you just said, that he's got to shore up the black vote to take on these so-called elites with whom he spent the past lifetime currying favor.

These elites, these mega donors, the New York Times readers, the New York Times op-ed board, what so an editorial board, but it's on now and he's going back to the core core base. And so far that base has not abandoned him so far. This week may tell us more. John Ellis, what a pleasure. Great to see you. Please come back soon. Thank you so much for having me. And on that last point that John made, right, that the White House is refusing a cognitive exam of the president. One has not been done and they're refusing to have one done. You heard that from the president himself in the Stephanopoulos interview and the White House doubled down on it yesterday. And what does that mean?

What can we glean from what we have seen and what information they have released? Up next, a brain health specialist, one of the most revered, Dr. Bredesen, joins me live. President Biden's team trying to do a late night damage control effort after a disastrous press briefing where Karine Jean-Pierre failed to answer basic questions about the president's health and why a Parkinson's disease expert made numerous trips to the White House over the last 12 months. As we reported yesterday, the New York Post's John Levine first broke news that President Biden's personal doctor, a man named Kevin O'Connor, met with a Parkinson's disease specialist at the White House in January of this year. That specialist name is Dr. Kevin Kennard. Then came a report from Alex Berenson that Kennard actually visited the White House's residence clinic nine times over the past year. We took a look and saw the same on the White

House logs. When asked about visits from Dr. Kennard, the neurologist, to the White House, which Corrine Jean-Pierre had to know someone would ask about, she refused to answer, citing security concerns, even though the doctor's name is listed on the public White House visitor logs. Watch. Very basic, direct question. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a second. Eight times or at least once in regards to the president specifically. Ed, please, a little respect here, please. So every year around the president's physical examination, he sees a neurologist. That's three times, right? So I am telling you that he has seen a neurologist three times while he has been in this presidency. That is answering that question. No, it's not.

No, it is. It is. You're asking me. Dr. Kevin Kennard, come to the White House. I also said to you, Ed, I also said to you, for security reasons, we cannot share names. We cannot share names. Now in regards to Dr. Kevin Kinnar. And I am telling you right now that I am not sharing confirming names from here. It is a security reason. What I can share with you is that the president has seen a neurologist for his physical three times.

Three times. And it is in the reporting that we share a comprehensive reporting. Matter of fact, it's more than what the last guy shared. And it is in line with what George W. Bush did. It's in line with what Obama did. I just want to point out once again, Phil Houston, CIA, 25 years, created the deception detection program for the CIA used by the FBI, Secret Service, law enforcement around the nation, constantly points out that attacking the questioner, attacking the question, or convincing behavior are all signs of lying.

That's the case. And listen, I can tell you from my time in the press, the press secretary is a paid liar. It was true of every single one who held the job left and right. That's the truth. Last night around 9 30 PM, the white house released a letter from said neurologist, uh, well from said personal physician to the president, Dr. Kevin O'Connor. And this letter tried to explain why the neurologist, Dr. Kennard, the Parkinson's specialist made all those recent visits. The majority of the neurologist, Dr. Kennard, the Parkinson's specialist, made all those recent visits. The majority of the letter was about Dr. Kennard's biography and his credentials. It confirmed that Dr. Kennard was the neurologist specialist who examined the president for each of his annual exams. It stated that Mr. Biden has, quote, not seen a neurologist outside of those

annual physicals. It also suggested that Dr. Kennard regularly visits the White House as part of his general neurology practice of helping support active duty military service members. However, the letter does not go into who Dr. Kennard was meeting with during those visits in question and why. We know at least seven of the visits show Dr. Kennard meeting with a woman who coordinates primary care visits for the president, the vice president, their families and appointed cabinet members. Why was she involved? Is there a cabinet member who needs a neurologist? Does the vice president? Did she have some sort of information she wanted to glean or give about the sitting president not answered in the letter. Joining me now, a specialist in brain health who was on this program back in June, 2022

to discuss the signs of dementia and other brain diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's in a special we were doing at the time around the president's health. Dr. Dale Bredesen is the senior director of precision brain health at the Pacific Neuroscience Institute and the author of the book, End of Alzheimer's, which is actually an amazing read with so much information. You should get it irrespective of your thoughts about President Biden. Dale, welcome back. Great to see you. Great to see you, Megan. Thank you. So can you just walk us through, because Parkinson's is being speculated about, and so is something with the word Lewy, and it's L-E-W-Y.

And could you just explain what those two conditions are, just to kick this off? And I understand you haven't examined President Biden, you're not making any diagnosis about him. Right. We're just wondering what those conditions are. Yeah, good point. And, you know, as you alluded to, the Goldwater rule prohibits physicians from making an actual diagnosis without meeting with the person, examining them, et cetera. So these two conditions are relatively common. There are over a million people in the United States with Parkinson's. There are over a million people with Lewy body disease. And as you indicated, these are often wrapped together because they both feature a specific protein, which is called alpha-synuclein.

Now, when we talk about Alzheimer's, we talk about amyloid and we talk about tau. When you're talking about Parkinson's and Lewy body, it is this alpha-synuclein, which makes up Lewy bodies. Now, if it's predominantly in the brainstem and you present mostly with movement problems, that is Parkinson's disease. If it's predominantly throughout the cerebrum, throughout the major part of the brain, and you're presenting first with cognitive change, and then you may develop some Parkinsonism later, then that's called Lewy body disease. But as you can see, they're closely related in their neuropathology. So those are the two conditions. And since you're talking about cognitive changes, as well as potentially some motor changes, then you would

probably be thinking about, you know, are there Lewy body issues? But again, yeah, you can't make a diagnosis without evaluating the person. And of course, it's concerning because there is so much of what we do to devote to patient confidentiality. And of course, what's being asked right now is just the opposite. I know it's different when you become president, right? It's like there's just, you's just HIPAA and all the other privacy laws are kind of out the window. So can you just explain the difference? And I want to get into some of the symptoms of these things a little bit more, but can you explain the difference between a neurological exam and a cognitive exam? Yeah. And in fact, they are actually part of the same thing. And I think that was kind of missed by one of the representatives. So a neurological exam includes a cognitive exam, but it also includes other things, strength, sensation, balance, all those things. But it absolutely includes a cognitive exam.

And what would a cognitive exam include? Yeah, so a cognitive exam is looking at basically the different areas of the brain. So how is your memory doing? How are you doing with respect to your executive function? How are you with your orientation? Do you know the day? Do you know the year? Do you know where you are? How are you doing with your verbal skills?

Can you read? Can you repeat? How are you doing with your verbal skills? Can you read? Can you repeat? Things like that. How are you doing with your spatial skills? Things like that. So all is basically testing the different areas. You know, you often see these where people will ask you to draw a clock and put in the hands, that sort of thing, non-digital clock, of course. And it's actually surprising at how early you may see changes in that based on the parts of the brain that are affected. So I think, you know, Megan, the thing that's really been missed here, everybody's got their opining, everybody's got their ideas. What's really

been missed here is that there is a tremendous amount of advance in brain aging, in neurological testing, and in age-related testing just in the last couple of years, things that weren't available before. So the reality is you don't need to speculate. There are specific tests that can be done very easily today. So there are blood tests, things like PTAU-217 and GFAP and neurofilament light. These are new blood tests on the Alzheimer's side, and they're actually quite good and quite sensitive. P-Tau-217 in particular is specific for Alzheimer-related conditions, and so it'll even see it before you have major symptoms. On the other hand, there are some new tests for Parkinson's and Lewy body.

And so there is one that's called SYN1, S-Y-N hyphen one, which is a simple skin biopsy. There is coming a wonderful test where you literally can take a small amount of sweat and you can look with mass spectrometry at a specific pattern of molecules that has turned out to be closely related to whether you have Lewy body disease, Parkinson's or not. So things are changing. Of course, there's imaging. You can look at specific imaging in PET scans, for example, and you can look at fluorodopa uptake, for example, in Parkinson's. So the reality is that instead of all the speculation, of course, it would be very easy to to look at those specific tests and know exactly where you stand.

So if they took such an exam, any of the ones you just mentioned, and it showed the president didn't suffer from any of those, it would be very simple to do and very simple to release to the public to quell some of the fears. Absolutely. But they won't. What they're saying right now is just rely on the neurological exam that was done at the annual physical back in February. And this is how they describe it, Doc. Tell me what you make of this. An extremely detailed neurologic exam was again reassuring. This is according to this latest letter we just got in that there were no findings, which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorders, such as stroke, MS, Parkinson's, or ascending lateral sclerosis, nor are there any signs of cervical myelopathy. So what does that mean in layman's terms? Yeah, what that means in layman's terms

is that the nervous system is intact. So of course, as you develop Parkinson's or as you develop Alzheimer's, you begin to have specific problems. And what they're saying is that those were evaluated. He did not have any symptoms to suggest stroke, Parkinson's disease, as you mentioned, myelopathy, which is just damage to your spinal cord, any of those things that can be a problem. So that's certainly a very good sign and suggests that they've looked carefully at the function of his brain and spinal cord and not found any problems. So again, not asking you to diagnose President Biden, who you haven't examined, but you saw, I'm sure as we all did what happened at that debate and the stiffness of his movements over the past year, the mouth agape, the sort of the glazed

waxy complexion and eyes, the inability to remember basic facts that we absolutely know he knows or knew, you know, the confusion, the inability to end sentences that he's begun. I mean, could that just be aging? Because Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel has lifelong Democrat, part of the Emanuel brother, you Brother, triumvirate oncologist. He came out and said, this could be a neurologic problem, or it could just be advanced aging. People age at different rates. Either way, he's kind of making the point, I don't care. I don't care what it is. I know what I see. But what do you make of those symptoms? Yeah. Again, I think that there's very little mystery here. So here's the point as far as your brain. So what happens is time is the broker through which all of us, do we want that wisdom and experience or not? It does come. You are trading over your many years of wisdom and developing wisdom and experience. You are trading some degree of resilience.

If you look at what changes from cradle to grave, the two major things that change, the two biggest changes are in your mitochondria. Those are the batteries of your cells and their DNA develops mutations over time. And then the other thing is your ability to respond to stress. So you take a very young person and you're changing time zones and keeping them up all night and flying around and having back to back, you know, 30 meetings in a row and all these sorts of stuff. That person will go through this.

You know, when I was an intern, you know, when I was in my 20s, I would stay up all night for two or three nights in a row, which was horrible. I couldn't do that in my 70s today. So that is a big change over our lives. And so this is something that we as voters have to be aware of. Do we want someone with more experience and more wisdom, or do we want someone who who may be more resilient, but they may make rash or less informed decisions? And I think that to me, that is the that's what's going on right now. And I understand. So, yes, what you see is stress related.

Some people would say that, you know, if I said something wrong, you might say Dale had a senior moment. And this, you know, this happens to us septuagenarians if we are stressed dramatically. And that happens to many, many people. We're seeing, of course, a lot of things with COVID and brain fog. So many people who never had issues before now have some degree of brain fog. So I think you described it correctly. It's one of those things. And you're going to see when there is a tremendous amount of stress, it's going to be tougher for anybody who is an octogenarian compared to a quintogenarian. And certainly for the president of the United States, which is literally probably the most stressful job on earth, just given the stakes of what you have to deal with in that role. Can I just I just want to play you one answer of his from the debate. And I thought this one

was very telling because it was on the subject of abortion, which was meant to be a softball deal. You know, I mean, this is a democratic politician who spent his life advocating for pro-choice policies. And his answer was so meandering and strange. It left everyone, especially the New York times, as I pointed out earlier in the show, really scratching their heads about what is this, what's happening here? It was a terrible thing, what you've done. The idea that states are able to do this is a little like saying we're going to turn civil rights back to the states that each state have a different role look there's so many young women who have been including a young woman who just was murdered and he went to the funeral and the idea that she was murdered by a by by an immigrant coming in to

they talk about that but here's the deal. There's a lot of young women to be raped by their in-laws, by their spouses, brothers and sisters. It's just ridiculous. Okay. First, he wasn't able to say what the trimesters were because he tried and failed. Then in an abortion answer, he brought up a girl killed by an illegal immigrant, Lakin Riley, who was not pregnant. It had nothing to do with abortion whatsoever. And then he ended it by saying a lot of women are raped by their sisters in trying to justify pro-choice policies. Dale, I don't know what was happening there. What what was happening there? Yeah, I mean, I think he was bringing in the earlier issues from from Mr. Trump related to the immigrants and the people being killed and

all these sorts of things. So I think he was, you know, he's hitting on more than one thing at once. You know, understandable. But I understand your point. It could, you know, could it have been more crisp? I think everybody and I'm sure that as Mr. Biden himself said, he had a bad night. So I'm sure it probably could have been a little crisper. Lake and Riley had not been brought up and no one gets raped by their sister and needs an abortion. Literally. Yeah, of course. I mean, it just of course, totally nonsensical that this is the kind of answer that has caused such deep alarm. Well, you know, you said it yourself earlier. This is the most stressful job. If you look at the famous pictures of Abraham Lincoln from just before his presidency started until just before he was assassinated. I mean, this is a guy who was in his 50s. And the difference is absolutely

striking. And of course, everybody has followed President Obama's braying. It is an extremely stressful job. And so, yes, you have to take into account how are you going to deal with stress and how are you going to set it up so that you get the best results? I mean, I think, you know, again, it's a political question about the the achievements. I think many would argue that the achievements of the current administration are quite impressive. Of course, others would say, well, we don't like them. That's a political question. I don't think it is about achievement, though. I think it's about it's not about the last four years. It's about the next four and ability to do the job. I mean, that's this is what's dividing the Democratic Party right now. They say we love you. They think that you did a

wonderful job, but they don't think you can make the case effectively against Trump. And B, nobody believes he can do another four years. Even his most ardent defenders will admit that behind the scenes. All right, I got to run because I'm up against a hard break. But Dr. Dale Bredesen, great to see you. Thanks for coming on. Take care, Megan. All right, we'll be right back with the fellas from Ruthless. Don't go away. Joining me now, the host of the Ruthless josh holmes john ashbrook and the man known to his minions as comfortably smug duncan is at jury duty he threw the short straw this i'd love to see

who would pick duncan that's what i'm saying like i i just i figured they would say oh no we know you you're out of here yeah you're out i mean yeah. No. All right. Well, I'm happy to see you guys. So something interesting just happened here on the program. Dale Bredesen, who's an expert in brain health. And I love this guy. He's he's genuinely brilliant. I'm going to guess he's also a Democrat was defending President Biden in a way saying what, what this is about is a choice between the wisdom that comes with age and the vigor and possibly brashness of a more youthful candidate. And I, I mean, I love Dale, so, you know, we didn't go hammer and Tom, but I don't know if this is wisdom, right? Like let's play this one. Let's play SOT 38. You tell me whether this is wisdom when he was looking for Jackie Spires, who had died just before. Watch. including bipartisan elected officials like Representative Governer, Senator Braun, Senator Booker, Representative Jackie.

Are you here? Where's Jackie? She wasn't going to be here. And that wasn't that wasn't yesterday, Megan. That was years ago. That was that was years ago that he did that. The Jackie Spires, Walorski, Jackie Walorski version of Joe Biden, like he sounded like Mike Mansfield compared to this version of Joe Biden, right? And even then, yeah, it's not wisdom. I think that's clear. It's wild to me how much the left covers for this. And we talked about this on our show. I want to believe it's a nothing. They just, they do. There was a front page article in the Washington Post that said that

the age is just a number. Wisdom comes with age. They were basically apologizing for all of his shortcomings like two months ago. Front page. Well, it was only about a month ago that the Wall Street Journal had that article where they spoke with like 25 insiders who said that, you know, Biden's in real tough, you know, health and he, they immediately got attacked. They got attacked by elected Democrats. They got attacked by other journalists. And then the debate happens and it becomes, you know, completely blatant for the entire world. The guy is not all the way up there. Yeah. And I love the feigned outrage. Like, oh yeah. Why didn't somebody tell us? Yeah yeah exactly so on the on the age question hold on i've got to find it i asked my team to pull it because it's actually one of the

favorite things i've seen where is that you guys the the um new york times like recently like with within the relatively not not so distant, had an article about defending President Biden where I have so many papers talking about his age. Oh, wait, I found it. As follows. Okay, I pulled this just for you guys. This is from March of 2024.

Here's the headline in the New York Times. You're not going to believe this. For Joe Biden. What seems like age might instead be style. It might be style. And they compared him to late night, OK, to certain artists at the end of their careers who enter a new and distinctive phase of creativity. I'm quoting here. Sometimes they produce a succession of masterpieces that both fulfill and transcend the promise of an earlier work.

Richard Wagner, Wagner's final run of operas. The three major novels Henry James published at the start of the 20th century. The movies Martin Scorsese is making now. That's the New York Times in March about this president. Amazing. Amazing. Like he's like, yeah, you know, it's a new phase I'm going through. I just headed down to the villages and checked out the assisted living facility and feel like that style is sort of befitting of where I'm at in terms of my leadership.

Just like Neil Young writing Harvest Moon. It's just a different face. He's going to wear skinny ties now and forget everything. That's his new style. How quickly they jump from excuse to excuse. They're like, it's a stutter. No, it's actually his style. It's a style.

It's intended to be like that. It's artistic. Yeah. So this is the same magazine that's now you guys saw the piece today where they're I mean, the New York Times today is freaking out that their pressure campaign on him is not working and doubled down with the headline. This is the editorial board. The Democratic Party must speak the plain truth to the president. I'm going to read you some of this by the editorial board for voters who held out hope that president Biden's failure to communicate during last month's

debate was an aberration. The intervening days have offered little comfort instead of campaigning vigorously to disprove doubts and demonstrate that he can beat Mr. Trump. Mr. Biden has maintained a scripted and controlled schedule of public appearances. He has largely avoided taking questions from voters or journalists, the kinds of interactions that reveal his limitations and caused him so much trouble on the debate stage. And when he cast aside his teleprompter, most notably during a 22 minute interview with Stephanopoulos on Friday, he has continued to appear as a man in decline. The president is now trying to defy reality. Mr. Biden has disregarded the concerns of the voters, his fellow citizens, and put the country at significant risk.

Since his feeble debate performance, multiple polls have shown that both Mr. Biden's approval rating and his chance of beating Trump have markedly dropped from their already shaky levels. He went with the polls are wrong. The latest Time Siena poll showed 74% of the voters

think he's too old and they go on to say as follows democratic leaders should not rely solely on the judgment of the few voters who turned out in this year's coronation primaries so f the voters democracy we know better mr biden has to pay attention to the will of the broader electorate that will determine the outcome in November. And then we read this in the intro. But since you guys weren't here, I'll tell you what they say next. From the grassroots to the high levels of the party, Democrats who want to defeat Trump in November should speak plainly to Mr. Biden. They need to tell him that his defiance threatens to hand victory to Mr. Trump. They need to tell him he is embarrassing himself and endangering his legacy. He needs to hear plain and clear that he is no longer an effective spokesman for his own priorities.

Going on to call specifically on Schumer, Jeffries and Pelosi, saying the time has arrived to speak forcefully. The whisper campaign is inadequate. There it is. There it is. Well, look, you come to the conclusion that they're not at all bothered by whether this guy can do the job or not. Right. We've all seen this in Technicolor over the last three and a half years. Nobody's been the slightest bit concerned about Joe Biden's ability to do the job, despite the fact that it's quite obvious that he can't they're a problem and the reason that are up in arms at this point is because he's losing yep they're very offended by the fact that they could lose to Donald Trump they they make no mistake they would weekend at Bernie's this guy all the way through if they thought they were gonna beat

Donald Trump I mean that was plan A that was that plan A. But I mean, quite honestly, they would have Benito Mussolini on the ticket if they thought that he could beat Donald Trump. They don't care about whether Joe Biden has any amount of fitness for this job. The only thing that they care about is winning it. And that has become imperiled since the debate. And so now we're all up in arms. They could have done this, by the way, the same time where they were writing the article last March that you read from extolling the virtues of this new stage of Joe Biden, because it was quite obvious then what was happening now. Exactly. And, you know, I think what this is, you know, a really great example is you're seeing this kind of outrage from the media saying that like, oh, we were lied to. And

that article to me is just like impotent rage of realizing that nothing they say or do, no matter what fit they throw will matter. The Democrats won't listen to them. Biden's not going to budge because the New York Times says so. And the thing is, is they did this to themselves. When they became stenographers instead of reporters, they gave away whatever power they had. You know, if you're not holding power to account, power won't respect you. And that realization is becoming really stark to them. They're like, why won't Joe Biden listen to us? Oh, right. It's because he knew he could just get us to do whatever he wanted for years. Yeah. I think that's a really important point, Smug. And I'm glad you brought it up because one of the things we talk about on the show all the

time is that the mainstream media will not write a negative story about a Democrat unless it's in service of a separate Democrat. If at this point they are thinking that there's no chance that Joe Biden is off the ticket, that they're stuck with him, that the other Democrat they're writing in service of are these liberal ideas that they they hew so closely towards so that when Joe Biden loses to Donald Trump in November, it's not the unpopular ideas of the open borders and the high inflation and the horrible things that Joe Biden has been doing to this country. It's just that he was too old to win. So they are covering. Very interesting. You should say that because, first of all, it is Jackie Walorski. Jackie

Spires is fine. But Jackie Walorski was from India and died. And they had they ran an in memoriam to her moments before he stood up there and said, where is she? She just, just terrible. You just acknowledge that she's dead. Anyway. Um,

God rest. You remember Megan, do you remember the guy that she had no legs that he told to stand up at a rally? That was also, Oh God, love you. God love you.

Stand up so people can see who you are. Oh God, love you. Um, but the thing I do want to talk about your point, Ashbrook, because the polls were bad for Biden going into the debate. You know, the national poll was tighter between the two of them. But these swing state polls were bad for Biden going into the debate. I mean, he's been running away to Trump in places like Nevada in the polls, which isn't really considered a swing state. You know, it has gone red in the past, but it's been a long time. You guys know that you've done work out there anyway. So I do wonder to like what extent like the lawfare campaign was failing.

Polls for Trump did not fall through the floor after the conviction in New York. The Democrats efforts to kill him were failing. And then they got to the debate. And so how much of the backlash against Biden is them genuinely being horrified by what we all saw, which was absolutely dreadful and alarming? And how much is we just picked the wrong horse, you know, like kind of Biden saying, hey, you didn't run a primary and I won and F off, you know, kind of got a point. Yeah. No, I mean, there's zero earnest piece of this. I mean, look, we're not around Joe Biden every day, but I do watch the news and I do read the newspaper. And there has not been a moment over the last three and a half years where we have gone a calendar week where there's not one of these episodes.

I mean, we play we open our show most days with a clip of Joe Biden. A lot of content. Right. That's a lot of content. We twice a week, right on schedule, 52 weeks a year. We've had Joee biden leading this it's always fresh and it's like not we're not like biden historians all we do is sort of observe what's happening it's like the idea that these people are always waking up being like oh my gosh i can't believe it he's actually not he's not doing well and i think also you know you make a good point megan is that this is like part and parcel of the realization of Democrats that their plan failed. They thought if we can say the magic word convicted felon Donald Trump, then it's all over landslide coast to coast. And that didn't end up materializing for them. like the last straw. When they see Joe Biden is functionally inoperable on a debate stage, I was like, okay, there's nothing we have going for us that voters would vote for us.

They can't run on their record, which is why they did the whole lawfare thing. They don't want to say, well, look, Americans feel pretty bad about the economy. It's war across the world under Joe Biden. he he basically can't speak like that's not a very strong case not great i mean if you rewind the tape on it it's kind of like a three-fold campaign right from the beginning how you're gonna get joe biden over the finish line right which is not an easy thing i'll give him some credit for that they gotta look at that there's some puzzle pieces there but it was first it was elevating donald trump because they thought that he was the single most flawed republican candidate so they spent remember

the speeches in philadelphia that joe biden gave or any forge value yeah any chance that he had to sort of elevate donald trump in the hopes that he would win a republican primary so they would that's step one step two is convict the Right. Run a full lawfare campaign so they could say he's a convicted felony felon and like add that because they're absolutely convinced the center of the electorate that was with them in 2020 will be right back despite their misgivings of a horrible presidency with the idea that he's a felon. marketing all of that down the stretch and hoping just, you know, bland old vanilla ice cream, Joe Biden could get over the finish line because of what you thought about Donald Trump. Once that failed, they're in a hell of a pickle. In some ways, the debate gave them an opportunity that they didn't ordinarily put themselves together to try to do. And so that's why this conversation is happening in perpetuity is because they're running a campaign that is destined to lose and they've got to try to

change the trajectory of it. Yeah, I know. It's like, I feel like if you're an actual patriot, you know, an actual patriot, you want Biden gone because you realize he has no business being president of the United States right now. He just, it's not the fact that he didn't win. It's the fact that he is incompetent to lead the country. Can't have a president who can only work six hours a day and even then doesn't know, you know, anything about the core issues that are important to the country,

nevermind his party, like abortion, which he thinks is about sister on sister rape. So that's a no. I forgot about that, Dizzy. He can't do anything. He can't do anything. There was like a 2,000-word Wall Street Journal article that posted last night that had all these vignettes about him losing his mind. And one of them, he couldn't come up with the word veteran. He was in a group of like 50 people. And he was like, what's the word for like somebody who was in the army or navy and they're like, veteran?

He doesn't even know the word. Like all that's going on and then you go to like the few remaining supporters of Joe Biden and they're like, well, what was he going to do to dig out of that? Well, he's going to have to run a more aggressive campaign. He's going to have to get out there and be a i'm sure he would love that i mean that's like saying michael j fox like why don't you just run out and do another back to the future well i'm sure we'd love to but god have other plans on that you know i mean that is what happens to joe he is incapable of running a vigorous campaign somebody ought to look at look at Jill Biden when she's not composing

her own music, walkout music at the White House and say, like, what the hell are you doing? How would you allow someone you love to go through this? Yes. So there was a report yesterday that Biden in that meeting with the governors declared over the weekend or Friday, we're done talking about the debate. The talk about the debate is over. In response to which, I could only think of this, Sot. It's 14.

Maybe you guys know it. Over? Did you say over? Nothing is over until we decide it is. Yeah. Yes. Perfect. An Animal House callback is always welcome.

Lutowski, for those of you who missed it, 1978, Animal House. I told the story last week. But my brother, who was only 13 at the time, asked my mom to take him because he couldn't get in without her. It was rated R. And she took him, and he actually had to get up and move his seat because my mother was laughing so hard. He was embarrassed. It was one of the best movies ever. So good.

With the answers to all of our news problems. But, yeah, so he's done talking about the best movies ever. So good. The answers to all of our news problems. But yeah, so he's done talking about the debate. Sure. Okay. That's fine. He can say that, but the rest of us aren't. And it's, and now it is a media pile on because every mistake he makes, finally, the left-wing press is paying attention to it. Yeah. Yeah. They're paying attention to it. But like John always said, I mean, it's because it's in service to this larger Democratic mission. if they can't replace him on the ballot, I predict they'll continue to criticize his age so that people do not pay attention to how ludicrous his liberal policies are and how much damage they're doing to the country. Because for these journalists, they are first and foremost

religious zealots for the left. And they preach the gospel of the left every single day. And if anybody questions that, they lose their mind. And you're not you're simply not allowed to question it. So Joe Biden will not stand in the way of their ideology or anybody else is not going to stand in the way of their ideology. Yeah. And don't underestimate the ability of a Democratic voter to get back on board here either. Right. I mean, we're going through a period where it's gotten a little leaner. I mean, the polls look pretty similar to how they looked before the debate period where it's gotten a little leaner i mean the polls look pretty similar to they how they looked before the debate but it's got a little leaner for them the spread has gotten you know a point or two more and there's this huge gap in the democratic side of

the ledger of people just not totally coalesced around joe biden yet if anybody thinks that they're not gonna coalesce they're wrong they are gonna coalesce they're good we're still talking about I mean they literally could weekend at Bernie's in they could literally roll him out with the arms and the legs and the big sunglasses and he was he is going to get 48 plus percent in a lot of these states that he's counting on and there are people in the media who are out there actively still defending him. Like he goes on Joe Scarborough. And if you watch morning, Joe, I mean, it sounds like it sounds like a conversation

inside the Biden press secretary's office. So it's very likely that morning, Joe, the day after Biden holds the nomination morning, Joe's like, oh, he's a comeback kid. We saw this with Bill Clinton. Look at that youth and vigor. He stopped all comments. He's going to stop Biden or he's going to stop Trump too. I mean, to me, it's amazing. Like if they actually do hold on, if he refuses to go and the Democrats choose to back him, it is the truly greatest gift that could have been given to Donald

Trump. I realize nothing is assumed. Nothing is guaranteed. But who had on their 2024 bingo card, the entire media turns on Joe Biden, knifes him repeatedly for two weeks or two months, completely batters and bruises him right before the vote. I mean, you could. Did Trump ever? It was Trump who was supposed to be getting that treatment right now from the media. Trump was supposed to be in the media every day. Convicted felon, convicted felon. And instead, we're getting decrepit, can't do it, incompetent cognition. All the problems outlined by the Times and Politico and Axios and the Atlanta Journal Constitution. I mean, everything. Yeah. Yeah. It's a black swan media event. It does not happen. And it only happens because Democrats are pushing it. I mean, a lot of opportunity to do that before, but now it's a problem for them. I think that the biggest issue when it comes to this campaign is at what point

do you get to a point of no return with the center of the electorate? Right? I mean, if you're looking, the reason that Joe Biden's like, all right, we're done talking about that is that they're going to begin to incur because of the daily conversation. I'm sure you've had this, Megan, people in your family who are not political at all, who you never hear from about anything in the news or political, they'll shoot you a text and be like, my Lord, look at Joe Biden. Like it's become a global phenomenon in information flow. And undoing that with a certain segment of the electorate that he's going to require to win 270 electoral votes is no easy task. If I'm a Democrat, you wonder whether or not you're already at a point of no return with that. Yeah. Yeah. You'd want your party to be, or your press to be hedging its bets a little bit more

just in case he refuses to go since he's got 99 percent of the delegates. This just in, guys, this is interesting. So we started the show by mentioning that the House Democrats are having a meeting and supposedly the House Senate members or the Democratic Senate members will as well. Just before, this is per Axios, House Democrats Tuesday morning meeting, a smaller group of swing district Democrats held what sources described as a despondent gathering with actual tears.

All right, these are the ones who are in these swing states where they'll lose if Joe Biden's too much of a fool. They're on the fence anyway. The block of battleground House Democrats is one of the last firm pockets of a rapidly disintegrating movement on Capitol Hill to get Biden off the ticket. One described the mood as, quote, pretty much unanimous that Biden, quote, has got to step down, adding, quote, there were actual tears from people and not for Biden. One House Democrat who was in both meetings, the smaller one with the swing state dams and the larger one, said, quote, most of our caucus is still with him, meaning he'll stay in,

which sucks for our country. So this thing is turning. it's starting to turn. I don't know what Joe Manchin is talking about when he says, just wait for the weekend. I don't know what Mike Quigley is talking about when he says behind the scenes, it's even worse. Trust me, they're going to come out. The ones who are behind the scenes saying, get out. And they're going to say it in front of the cameras. He's already losing some donors, but not all. So how does this play out, you guys? Is there some big turn coming before the weekend? And how long does he have? I mean, if it's not Barack Obama himself and Hillary Clinton herself, Chuck Schumer himself, Akeem Jeffries himself, if it's not those people coming out, looking at a camera and saying, Joe Biden, you need to get out there. You, there is not enough strength to just sort of like do

it behind the scenes and pitch a story to the New York times and then have the editorial page, right with their writing. Cause Jill ain't having it. Exactly. And Hunter's definitely Hunter is a 100% not having it. This is all. Let me give you a visual on Hunter, what he's going to be doing. All right. We ran this video. Forgive me. It's not nice. It's from Brazil. And it's a woman who has taken in a man, a dead man, an actual dead man, who she claimed was her uncle in an effort to get a four figure loan in his name. I'm sorry. It's so cool. But that's Hunter and Joe. This is Hunter Biden. I'm sorry.

Yeah, I'm sure the pardon paperwork is around here somewhere, Dad. Here it is. God, forgive me. Before I'm sorry. He's going to have Air Force One in China going just door to door with Joe in a wheelchair, being like, one more contract for the road. Come on. You can do it. I literally have my father sitting right

next to me this time. I actually do anything. Selfies. We talked about this, I think, gosh, must be like six months ago, Megan, all of us together with you, what were their options, right? How would they get to a point where they could actually do something other than Joe Biden? And at that point, we talked about the difficulty of moving around Kamala Harris, which obviously there's a huge constituency that's represented within the Democratic Party that would take grave offense if somehow the number two was not elevated to the number one in such a scenario as the one we're looking at here. I think that's only become more difficult.

We laid out some scenarios back in the day, but i think now you see guys like uh jim cliburn right who's probably the single most important part of the constituency of joe biden he would have been the nominee without him in 2020 he came out immediately and said well if it's not gonna be joe it's gonna be connell harris i think that's basically what they got here, right? And then there was some leaking out of super PAC major donor discussions that I think maybe Ben Smith or somebody had heard about. And I'm paraphrasing, but basically what they said is Conley Harris is scarier to the senator of the electorate than a dead Joe Biden. And that is a political reality that they are grappling with. Like, yes, it's unpalatable to have Joe Biden continue, but they're so locked in in the constituencies that make up the Democratic Party that they actually can't freelance a

whole bunch here. Right. There's no white horse coming down. So Holmes, do you think that Clyburn coming out and saying that about Kamala was intended to throw a lifeline to Joe because Clyburn understood fully that the Democratic base would not accept her as a sub? I do. Like Duncan always says on our show, the best 25th Amendment insurance that Joe Biden ever got was appointing Kamala Harris as his number two, right? Because nobody ever wanted to see her in charge. And I think that's part of the part of the impartial of the case. But if you're talking about African-Americans writ large and Black women in particular, that is a core demographic to the Democratic Party, and there is no chance in hell that. So it's like a rock and a hard place.

I mean, there's really at this point, like the gurney might be a better option. This is so interesting. Like, I actually don't know what's going to happen. I realize that Biden wants to stay and Jill Biden wants to stay. But I've never seen this kind of media onslaught by the left against one of their own candidates who's already basically been nominated. I mean, he's got 99% of the delegates. It's one thing when you can cut like a senator or a house member who's immersed in a massive scandal. That's one thing, they've done that. But this is something else entirely. And it's universal. I mean, the hypocrisy of course, is like so on the nose, the New York times, which you say is, well, how did you put it smug? They're in a rage. They're impotent, impotent rage. Okay. I love that. They're in a meltdown

right now. Notwithstanding the fact that, you know, when did the her report come out? It was like a couple of months ago. H you are the special counsel investigating Joe Biden and his misuse of classified documents. And this was their opportunity. He came out, he said, I would indict him. Yeah, this, he committed this crime, but he's a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory. And I don't think that a jury would convict such a person. That's it. That's all he said. He did not go on about poor memory that, you know, is evident in all circumstances, or he can't put two sentences together, or he can't finish his thoughts, or he meanders, or he can't stay on topic or all the things that we saw, or he's got the mouth agape and the dead waxy skin, like none of that, none of that. And this is what we have a soundbite of people on

TV. But trust me, we went back and looked at the New York Times. They were just as bad in what they said about Robert Herr at the time. Watch this and suffice. The comments that were made by that prosecutor, gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate. Hackery by Mr. Herr. He's a guy who knew. He's a tromper who knew. You are not to put a finger on the scale of politics. That report showed that Merrick Garland again made the classic Democratic mistake,

which is, I know, I'll appoint a Republican, a Republican partisan to investigate, and that will give us credibility. This one who was appointed by Donald Trump wanted to make sure that he got his licks in. OK, you you managed to infuse licks in and Jeffrey Toobin in a shot that you just played for the Ruthless Variety program. It's subtle, but I knew you guys would get it.

I will point out for the listening audience, though, that CNN was good enough to pan to Toobin's hands just so you know, just so you knew where they were. A thoughtful gesture as a programming note. Robert Herr, where do you go to get your reputation back? Right. Smeared by everybody in the media, including The Times, which is now saying he's got to step down. He's too infirm. He can't do it. They were disgusted about this one line in the guy's report. They had opportunities to report on it. They had excuses to report on it. It really wasn't until two things happened. The lawfare campaign failed. The polls, I guess three things, did not improve. And then the world saw in an undeniable way just how bad he was,

that they were like, we've got to get off this sinking ship right now. The devil's about to get elected. Yeah. Well, I mean, look, this episode perfectly illustrates the lengths to which Democrats went to try to conceal Joe Biden's actual health from the American public. I mean, her came out with this, they instantly criticized and like you knew that was coming. But then down the road, House Republicans tried to get the audio to put they're still not able to get that out. The White House just had presidential privilege dropped on top of that. And so people couldn't listen to a deposition from the president of the United States with a special counsel. They couldn't hear it because the White House's extraordinary moves to try to conceal it.

And like you said, I think like four months ago, if you had listened to that, my guess is based on what was in that transcript, everybody would come to the same conclusion that we saw two weeks ago. But now Democrats are stuck in a hot war behind the scenes. And that's part of the reason why, Megan, you said that you can't figure out who's going to be their nominee and we can't figure out who's going to be their nominee democrats don't know who is going to be their nominee they had no plan they literally are in a war against each other and the only chance that the new york times and these members who want to get rid of Biden have, the only chance they have is if he has ninety nine delegates and Hillary Clinton isn't one here. Wait, here's I want to give you more of the New York Times after hers report.

Paul Krugman, opinion columnist, the disgusting furor over Biden's age. When the news broke about special the special counsel's hit job, his snide, unwarranted, obviously politically motivated slurs about President Biden's memory, and he goes on from there. I had an hour-long off-the-record meeting with Biden in August, and I can assure you he is perfectly lucid with a good grasp of events. Flash forward to after the debate on June 28. Here's his headline. The best president of my adult life needs to withdraw. No apology to Robert Herr.

It's just, okay, now I see the truth. I mean, like we could spend all day doing this. It's just so dishonest. Can we spend the minute? You can see the truth. That's what he's concerned about. Yep, that's his issue. But then now the importantly, you can see the truth. That's what he's concerned about. Yep. He knew the truth. That's his issue. But now the fact that we can see the truth and it's not running through the prism that

he had constructed to try to present a different reality, now it's a problem. Yep. I want to spend a minute on the Wall Street Journal report that you guys just mentioned that hit last night talking about the headline is how Biden's inner circle worked to keep signs of aging under wraps. It's just so ridiculous. They were all part of it. The media was part of it. The Biden White House team was part of it. And at Dollars to Donuts, this quack doctor was part of it, too. This Kevin O'Connor, he's complicit. That guy worked for the Bidens. He was in partnership with Jim

Biden. And he's like Jill Biden's son, according to the former White House doctor. And this guy is obviously running cover for Joe Biden. His ridiculous statements do not assuage any of my concerns. So we'll talk about that too. But here's the Wall Street Journal reporting. Senior White House advisors for more than a year have aggressively stage managed President Biden's schedule, limited his daily itinerary, shielded him from impromptu exchanges, restricted news conferences and media appearances, twice declining Super Bowl halftime interviews. All of our viewers know all of this. You guys and we have covered all of this. At some fundraising events, the campaign allows few impromptu moments at a fundraiser with the president, even with top donors. They don't want his top donors getting one-on-one discussions with them. The campaign has long directed donors to submit their questions for the president in

advance, including at an event this year in South Florida with only eight people, eight people. You that's like you guys telling me you want my questions for the show to be submitted in advance. You can't retain the info during a fundraiser at the four seasons in New York in June of 23, he spoke for five to 10 minutes. Uh, the attendees were struck by how fragile he seemed at one point. He could not recall the word for veteran. This is what you were talking about, Ashbrook. He asked the group to help him find the word, saying he wanted to refer to a person who had served in the Army or Navy.

When asked about these events, Kevin Munoz, a Biden campaign spokesperson, criticized reporters who use anonymous sources. So it's not a no. And then we go to this. The White House aides often erect barriers to keep reporters from asking Biden questions. Journalists are sometimes kept dozens or even hundreds of feet away from the president at events. And I didn't know about this. White House staff often blast music. So questions cannot be heard during the president's exit. When Biden holds one of his rare news conferences, White House officials often reach out to reporters whom the president might call on in a bid to determine what questions they plan to ask. We know that because we saw the L.A. Times question on one of his note cards and the L.A. Times got humiliated because they got caught doing his bidding, not to mention those radio hosts over the weekend. Some donors who had seen all of this up close and personally and were alarmed, kept their concerns quiet.

You guys will get this. Because they did not want to risk their access or influence. No one wanted to jeopardize a chance to become an ambassador, said a Los Angeles-based longtime Democratic donor. Disgusting. What a game. What a game. Like, they are willing to risk this country. To me, the most shocking part of that Wall Street Journal article was, was it a G7 meeting that

the German chancellor was hoping, you know, had a meeting set with Joe Biden afterwards to have dinner. And then Anthony Blinken shows up and says, well, Joe Biden fell asleep. He's asleep right now. You think you could construct a better excuse, by the way. I mean, I guess there's sometimes honesty is not the best policy, but. Brandon is dark. So for an ambassadorship. Brandon is dark. Darker than we know. For an ambassadorship, these people are willing to risk having a president who's not ready

if a crisis breaks out internationally, if a war breaks out, if the country's attacked, the guy's asleep by 4 p.m. They're like, well, listen, everyone keep your mouth shut. Maybe we get ambassadorships out of this. That's just disgusting. Completely. Yeah, completely. Well, and I think they said it. They're concerned about themselves. There was a campaign spokesperson on background, of course, can't put their name on it, but it was either in that article or another article. Maybe they just tweeted out in response to the article,

but it was basically like, ah, this is like all nonsense. Everybody's going to want their Christmas party invite next year. Right. Which is like the way they characterize it. It's yeah. The access to us is significantly more important. On the bright side, Biden will have zero memory of anything that was written about him. I always say to my husband, Doug, because I have this attachment to the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. And I'm like, you know, if I ever get Alzheimer's and I have to go into like the Alzheimer's wing of some facility, just, you know, make sure that you get that. And my other favorite movies all teed up for me. And he goes, you're only going to need one.

No, it's true god i mean it's it seems like this guy we're like a half step away from somebody throwing a baseball at his face to see if he wakes up like robert de niro in awakenings you know i mean this is just like it's getting ugly out there i know all right standby we're gonna take a quick break but when i come back um, James Clyburn just came out of that that meeting and what he's saying now about Biden's future. Standby. I'm Megyn Kelly, host of The Megyn Kelly Show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal and cultural figures today. You can catch The Megyn Kelly Show on Triumph, a SiriusXM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love.

Great people like Dr. Laura, I'm back, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey, and yours truly, Megyn Kelly. You can stream The Megyn Kelly Show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the SiriusXM app.

It has ad-free music coverage of every major sport, comedy, talk, podcast, and more. Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free. Go to SiriusXM.com slash MKShow to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com slash MK show and get three months free. Offer details apply. Did you speak up in favor of President Biden? I didn't speak. What was there more people saying Biden should step down or more people saying

we're riding with Biden. We're riding with Biden. Is that the general consensus in there? We are riding with Biden. Was there conversation about Vice President Biden? We are riding with Biden. We're riding with Biden. Is that the general consensus in there? We're riding with Biden. Was there conversation about Vice President Obama? We're riding with Biden. Was there conversation about Vice President Kamala Harris in there? We're riding with Biden. You're still a national campaign chair, right? Yes, I am.

Was that the consensus from everyone in the room? Riding with Biden. Do you still support the idea of a mini primary? We're riding with Biden. Does this complicate the idea of a mini primary the focus on 2025 and you're riding with that that was james claiborne powerful super enthusiastic well what do you what do you make of that you guys well it's obvious that he can't come out and say that there was consensus i mean we've seen all the reports there was actual tears being shed over the idea that they were riding with biden but again he's the national co-chair of biden's campaign like what else is he supposed to say

and like i you know i just don't think they have a plan b that is workable at this point. Like the fact that we've been having this conversation for two weeks means that they are trying to figure something out other than riding with Biden. Yeah. But the fact that they haven't come to any consensus at all is evident by the fact that the newspapers are still talking about riding with Biden being a bad deal. And, you know, so James Clyburn's in a rough spot. Bill Burton, who used to work for the Obama campaign as a spokesman, had a piece out recently saying this is it would be a disaster to go with anyone other than Kamala. And we went back earlier on her unpopularity. And he was saying, imagine this. Imagine they do do the mini primary and someone like, let's say, Gavin Newsom wins. But

she's still on the VP role. Right. She's not, nobody's talking about bouncing her out of the VP role if she doesn't win the sweepstakes. And so now she's got to move out of California because you can't have two people running from the same state for VP and president. That would be so great. So the sitting vice president who is a black woman and Southeast Asian, whatever, she's got to get out of California. She's got to run as the number two behind the white dude in a party whose base is black women and who prizes identity politics. I mean,

I don't think that's the kind of message. Yeah. You don't think that's kind of the message that they're seeking to convey with a hundred days left in the damn election. Holy cats, what a disaster. It was a very interesting thought experiment. Here's more on this meeting. Biden backer, Representative Juan Vargas, Democratic California. It's the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Who's calling the president's critics

a circular firing squad via Politico. Closely watched House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries open the private meeting with remarks about unity. According to one member who interpreted those comments as support for Biden, Jeffrey's message, uh, according to representative Garcia, Democrat of Illinois was to stay together and listen to each other. But one member who attended today's Democratic caucus meeting tells who is this reporter, Katia Goba. The morale of the caucus is at historic lows. When I asked if they would compare it to a funeral like others have, they said that is an insult to funerals. And finally, political headline House Dems sad venting session yields no clear path forward on Biden's future.

Oh, my God. They must be in therapy daily. I would be really curious to to see if Jimmy Carter is watching the news on this because in 1980 live option there was a senator who who there was a senator who's who a Democrat who told Jimmy Carter that he couldn't win and led a charge to try to replace him that Senator was Joe Biden oh so I bet Jimmy Carter is watching with popcorn every night too he's like thank God I made it he was like let me hold on to this hold on until the election day to watch this that calls for another bag of peanuts and a peach yeah honestly jimmy carden might be in better cognitive shape than joe biden right now honestly honestly the thing that i that i find just this whole episode just it makes me angry i should be more cynical than this but it does still make me

angry is the idea that they've had unprecedented unity within the democratic conference right there wasn't a single one of them that took a look at the inflation reduction act that summarily increased inflation on the american people and increased the suffering of their constituencies wasn't a single one of them that popped up and said like maybe this isn't a good idea even when the results became evident they never wanted to revisit it because that had total unity but as soon as their political prospects are damaged oh we have actual tears yeah actual not a single tear shed for your constituents but like the narcissism and the cynicism that is today's democratic party has given grave concern over the fact they might not be able to keep their job.

That's exactly it. That's exactly it. And now we're going to have to pretend, I guess, that we believe this medical doctor from the White House, that the Alzheimer guy or the Parkinson's guy, he only ever examined Biden on his annual physical. And all those other visits were for some unnamed other person at the White House who they will not give us any information about. And it doesn't matter that he was actually meeting with this particular woman who coordinates primary care visits for the president, the vice president, their families and appointed cabinet members. Just pay no attention to any of that. We swear it wasn't for Joe Biden. And they won't answer whether that when this Alzheimer's or Parkinson's doctor came, he was consulting with the main doctor, Kevin O'Connor, about President Biden, even though the vast majority of the visits followed a very public incident with President Biden showing cognitive

decline. They won't answer any. We're supposed to just accept this doctor letter like he's fine. And meanwhile, I'll give credit to who is it? Politico, who puts this in its reporting. Experts in presidential health and its long history of medical cover-ups said the close personal bonds between the Bidens and this Dr. O'Connor, that's the main doctor, intensified the inherent conflicts in relying on this White House position to accurately tell us anything. Burt Park, author of The Impact of Illness on World Leaders and an advocate for independent oversight of president's health, called the Biden family bonds one of the many

concerns about relying on O'Connor to publicly disclose serious medical issues. But we cannot depend on the presidential physician to come clean. That's a fool's game. And then this from Jacob Apple, professor at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York, who has studied the political dilemmas posed by the president's health, saying the members of the public are fooling themselves if they believe the president's doctor is there to keep them fully informed. And also pointing out HIPAA forbids physicians from disclosing medical information that a patient wants to keep secret. All Joe Biden has to say is we're not releasing anything about cognitive issues. And these physicians hands are tied. And yet we're

supposed to just take this little letter and say, okay, I guess he's fine. Yeah. It was really interesting. He's had Ronnie Jackson, who's currently a Congressman was previously the white house doctor immediately after the support came out, he said, well, this is absolute bunk because if it was just two doctors consulting and not an actual medical checkup that would have taken place in the eeob this this doctor was specifically allowed access into the white house residence which is not where you go unless you're checking in on the president that's good info that's good there are some weird questions with this mug thank you for raising that because kelly Kelly McGuire, who took a look into this for us, and she's very smart. She doesn't make mistakes, was pointing out that the president's doctor heads up the White House medical unit, which includes about 30 medical personnel and is

available for medical care at all hours of the day. There's an exam room on the ground floor of the White House residence located next to the map room, as well as a larger set of offices in the EEOB. Now, she says those who receive care include the president, his immediate family, the vice president, White House staff members, and if necessary, foreign dignitaries and tourists. Well, we know it wasn't a foreign dignitary or tourists getting. I mean, come on. of the neurologist visits had him go to the residence clinic and we've been unable to determine if that specific area is meant for just biden and his family but you're saying that that that it is according to ronnie jackson the previous white house doctor yeah i mean that's just yeah i mean it's it's tough for them because they keep getting caught in their lies it used to have like

they had like a month or two before the lies unraveled and now it's within minutes so we've had this like like what is the most difficult job in the White House is it the bracket man who tries to correct the transcripts is it the advanced person who has to put teleprompters up for a seating of eight people or I'm now convinced it might be the attending on-call physician for Joe Biden. Talk about a taxing job. Holy moly. Didn't happen. I mean, you just memory hole at all. Didn't happen. You can rely on HIPAA to say it didn't happen. I haven't been authorized. And then it's all well and good until your client, your patient agrees to do a presidential debate and has a complete meltdown in front of the American people. Look, guys, all I think is I don't know at this point whether Biden can be

forced out. I think this is an absolute political calamity for the Democrats. I think Biden is, as Maureen Dowd put it, being incredibly selfish and short sighted. And I do think this is boiling down at this point, as our first guest, John Ellis said, to a fight between the white elites who read the New York Times and the core black constituency that makes up the base of the Democrat Party. Who will win? Who will side with Biden and who won't? Who will have the ultimate power? The next coming days will tell. Guys. Great to see you. See you very soon. Great to see you. Absolutely. Thanks, Megan. All right. All the best tomorrow, Glenn Greenwald and Tulsi Gabbard. That ought to be fun. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda and no fear.