of the interesting subjects here, that's come out in the past week, as you guys are talking about the book, is the role of the media.

I don't, I don't wanna do like an extended media criticism here, especially because I'm not sure it's actually correct.

You were doing reporting, um, in 2023.

You were bringing this up.

There's a quote that I want to show you.

It's actually, I mean, it's not just you guys, Ezra Klein was asking questions in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal.

I want to show you a quote from Mark Leibovich writing in The Atlantic in June of 2022.

100%.

I mean, and, and, and the article is called Why Biden Shouldn't Run in 2024.

Biden is by no means the more eloquent character.

he was in his younger days, it could be painful to watch him get prepared speeches.

His tone could be tentative in certain sentences can become hopscotching journeys.

His aides in the room looked visibly nervous at times and so on.

I don't understand how this narrative has developed that no one in the media that the media was covering for Biden.

I think what might be going on here is a lack of understanding about how reporting works in order to prove that he's diminished, you have to have people.

Sources inside telling you this.

So give me your thoughts on, on this question.

Certainly it's, it's certainly there, there were a lot of folks in the conservative media in the pro-Trump media at Fox and elsewhere who are running clips of Biden and saying, uh, I think.

It was one Fox anchor called him Siy Joe sippy cup Biden or whatever they were saying things along those lines, and they were making a bigger deal about doubts about his acuity, then it could be said the, the legacy media was, and I think that's fair for them to say we were making a bigger deal, but as you point out, there is a difference, and I'm not belittling the importance of airing those clips.

I aired some of them too.

There is a difference between airing a clip and saying that's odd, that's unusual he seems, it seems like something's going on.

And what and I have been able to do, which is after the election all those Democrats we talked to more than 200 sources for this book, uh, almost all of them Democrats, almost all of them after the election who were telling us what was really going on behind the scenes and the anecdotes and the concerns that we bring forward in this book is investigative journalism and that is different from observational punditry.

I would also just add that you know.

And I understand the, the, the, the pushback that, you know, Biden's age was constantly a topic, right?

And you know, the Mark Leibovich story is a perfect example.

Um, but that was about sort of uh in a political lens, a horse race lens.

I do not feel there was a ton of investigative reporting about his ability to do the job and how his age was really affecting it.

And I think also, I mean, look at the reaction to the Wall Street Journal story in June of 2024, just weeks before the debate.

There are a lot of reporters that sort of threw shade at that story.

There was not as much solidarity, that's sort of there were people that attacked Annie were journalists who attacked Annie Linsky and Siobhan Hughes, two excellent Wall Street Journal reporters who were, who were raked through the coals by not just the White House and Democrats, but by their own colleagues for just reporting the truth about what they could find out at that moment in time, right?

Well, talk, talk a little bit about, well, I want you to, I want you to watch uh something cause his I this goes to the question of cover up.

Watch this clip from Joe Biden speaking.

in 2016 at the convention.

We have the most productive workers in the world.

And give it a fair shot.

Give it a fair chance.

Americans have never, ever, ever, ever let their country down.

Never.

Never That's 2016, 2016, yeah.

I mean, so here, here's the thing, it's like like watching a different person.

Well, how do you, that's, that's why I maybe, maybe this is semantic, uh, debate, uh, but how, how do you It was all there.

It's all right in front of your eyes.

That is a vital man with a full voice, energy, coherence although I will say our reporting suggests that his diminishment began a year before that, that is diminishment began in 2015 with the death of Beau, because what, what seemed to happen, Jeffrey, is there were two Joe Biden's.

There was the fine Joe Biden that we just saw in that clip right there and then there was the nonfunctioning Biden that we saw during the debate and the nonfunctioning Biden would rear his hand.

increasingly and more disturb more and more disturbingly as time went on.

So when Barack Obama told Joe Biden that he didn't think he should run or suggested you should take care of yourself.

Part of what I think what Obama was seeing in Biden was the non-functioning Joe Biden.

Now, the question is, when did the non-functioning Biden emerge so often it was, it was a real question as to whether he should serve as president, and I think that is probably not till 2023, 2024.

And, and I would just add that, yes, a lot of this was out there, but if But what was happening in front of the scenes was much worse behind the scenes.

They were propping up the best version of him through like through those times.

And if I believe that if the media had done a better job than the debate would not have come as been so shocking to so many people, right, right.

Well, you can lead people to stories that you write, but you can't make them read them.

And I think that's part of the issue.

I'm not trying to make excuses.

You've been very forthright about your critique of softness on the part of the media.

on the question, but let me ask you this because this is the actual serious matter here.

Um, by 2023, 2024, Joe Biden was being limited, according to your reporting, and even the number of hours where he was functioning as president.

It's a 24 hour a day job.

It's become a cliche, but if you've woken up at 3 a.m. to find out that a North Korean missile is heading toward Japan.

You've got to react, and we have cabinet secretaries in the book, as you know, who are telling us that by.

2024, they do not have faith that Joe Biden could be relied upon for that 3 a.m. phone call and that's chilling.

Chilling How do you, I feel like I'm asking a question on behalf of, of just the average citizen or average voter.

How do you as a Washington professional as a senior member of the White House staff.

Look at that situation, reach that conclusion.

And then say, we're just gonna To use your language, cover it up.

I just don't understand.

It's tough to understand it, but if you can, first of all, in, in the historical context, one of the things that is important for people out there to understand is the presidency has maybe never been stronger and political parties in the legislative branch have never been weaker.

The political parties.

I mean, it's, it's Jamie Harrison, who was the DNC chair.

I don't know one person who thinks he could call up President Biden and tell him anything, you know, um, and that's not even necessarily his fault.

The parties are just so weak and he was picked to be, uh, the weak leader of a weak party, and the Republican, the GOP isn't particularly strong either, right?

I would also say how you justify it, if you believe Donald Trump is the next central threat to democracy, right?

You can justify almost anything, including doing at times undemocratic mannequin would be better from the perspective of a lot of critics of Donald Trump.

There are tens of millions of people in this country that would prefer Joe Biden at 100 years old to Donald Trump right now.

That's no, I mean that's an interesting it's obviously an interesting point, but it's also beside the point.

One of the interesting things about the, the larger con the larger conversation that you guys have opened is that that there's a lot of um criticism of Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress not checking his power, not playing their role on behalf of their branch of government, but what this book is about is also we haven't really talked about it that much and people aren't talking about it that much.

Democrats in Congress were very, very late and very, very soft on this issue.

They could have in 2022 said enough.

Yeah, in 2023 enough.

Where were they?

Well, first of all, a lot of them were shunted off to the side and didn't get a lot of access starting in 2022, 2023, and, and so some of them would we have members of Congress in the book who see Biden at the Christmas party in 2022 and then don't see him again in person until the next Christmas party in 2023, and it's like he's aged 20 years in that one year and they remarked to each other, but where are the incentive structures in our politics for people to be brave.

Where are the incentive structures for people in our politics to raise their hand and Say the emperor has no clothes.

There aren't any.

I mean, I understand one congressman, one congressman, Dean Phillips, who ran against uh Joe Biden, uh, and was defenestrated and you know, who knows what he's going to do next.

He's out of Congress.

He was utterly destroyed and humiliated.

Robert Her, the special counsel, tried to tell the truth about what he saw behind the scenes.

We've now all heard the her tapes and oh my God, that's the same Joe Biden that was uh at the debate and the White House was upset with Merrick Garland for have, I mean, there was talk about that they were upset at Merrick Garland for not editing the her report to remove the sanction that said, I'm not, even though Joe Biden mishandled classified information, I'm not going to prosecute because I don't think I could get a conviction because the jury would see him as a well-meaning sympathetic old man with a poor memory, which was the nicest thing he could say about Joe Biden.

Right.

There's so much more to talk about.

One quick question and then one slow question for you.

Uh, the Kamala Harris, where was she?

Well, she, after her report, she became the main outfront validator for Joe Biden's fitness.

She she chose to do that, and she said that her report was politically motivated, used her background as a prosecutor to say it was sloppy and she became, you know, she basically put all of her chips in with Joe Biden.

Now was she in every meeting?

No, so maybe she can claim plausibly that maybe she never saw the non-functioning Biden.

I'd also say within this context, you know, the Joe Biden is his inner circle had a very dim view of her, did not think that she could beat Donald Trump.

Still are like they'll still point to her and say, I told you so.

And they used her, you know, political standing as an excuse to justify running for reelection, right, Jake, I want to ask you this.

What Based on you, based on your reporting on Biden.

What do you, what have you learned about how the press should cover Donald Trump right now.

I don't think that the press should cover any president going forward, uh, A Without demanding full and complete transparency about health records, which we're not getting from Trump.

Uh, we still don't know why he went to Walter Reed in 2019.

Um, and I think that we need to be skeptical of everything that we are told by people in power, uh, and I mean that obviously should be the mantra of of being a journalist to begin with if your mother tells you she loves you, get a second source, but we just need to remember that like politicians lie.

White Houses lie.

Power is an aphrodisiac, and we just need to all remember that and take at face value anything that we're told.

Thank you gentlemen.

Um, this has been very interesting.

We're gonna have to leave it there for now, but I want to thank our guests for joining me and thank you at home for watching us.