13. Biden’s Last Stand

0:06Hello and welcome to The Rest is Politics US in another very quiet week in American politics with me Katty Kay. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. Welcome to The Res is Politics US. Katty, where are you today, Katty? I can tell you where I am, okay, because I'm a little bit bougie. Okay, I'm in the Hamptons. Today is my 10th wedding anniversary and I'm taking my wife to Italy. So you see that? So Joe Biden's having a train wreck of a life right now, but not me, Katty, and not you. You are on your way to Tuscania. I'm sitting in London where the big news, of course, is that England is through to the finals of the Euros.

0:40And the even bigger news is that the sun has come out for the first time since I've been here in three days. Cancel everything else on this podcast, I Can See Sun in London. What a week, Anthony. So on this show, quickly, before we dive right into it, we are going to get into the topic that is dominating all political conversation, actually on both sides of the Atlantic, interestingly. And that is where Joe Biden is going to be forced out of the race for the presidency. He is being defiant still in the media, insisting that he is committed to staying in this. But behind closed doors, there is widespread panic amongst Democrats.

1:17Then after the break, we're going to take a look at the NATO summit that's been held in Washington this week, whether Biden is doing enough to reassure his European allies, and what those allies are doing to prepare NATO for a possible Trump presidency come November. So, Anthony, this may or may not be a sign that we should be in the prediction game. But last week, you predicted very confidently that Joe Biden was going to not just drop out of the race, but hand over the presidency to Kamala Harris by the end of July, and that she was going to take over the mantle. I have multiple texts from Democrats in the House, in strategists, in the White House, some Democrats in the White House saying to me, can we switch to WhatsApp so that this is not easily followed, our chain of text messages to each other, which is a sign of kind of how nervous and stressful all of this is for Democrats.

2:09And they don't want to be necessarily caught saying things that could come back to hurt them. But where are you on that prediction right now? I think what I should have said to our listeners last week that he's obviously got the NATO summit. They're not going to do anything before the NATO summit. They've got 30 leaders coming into Washington. The U.S. has obviously been the main progenitor and main funder of NATO. And so there's no reason to do anything then. And we'll talk a bit about all of that business later too with NATO because there's real substance being done there. I think they are going to do something very bold.

2:40And so, you know, if they don't put Kamala Harris in the seat, okay, that's possible. I mean, I get that he may want to stay to the end of his term, but if they did something very bold, put her in the seat, now she's president and she's running against Donald Trump, it gives her a leg up. If they don't want to go with Kamala Harris, they then have to open up the convention. So let's just talk quickly a little bit about process. If Joe Biden is nominated, their convention is late August. They can call a quorum over a conference call. They can nominate him. And now all the delegates are at his disposal.

3:13Hall, and then he can favor or give an inside track to somebody like Kamala Harris. They could say he's stepping out. His delegates go now into an open pool. They could create a free-for-all at the convention. I think that'd be very, very bad for them, by the way, because it would show that they're completely in disarray and disorganized. And at a time when the American public is actually paying attention to politics, it's very bad imagery for them. And so, but I think he's out and I'm going to maintain that. If I get this wrong, Caddy, maybe we can have like a dunking station and you can press the button.

3:48You can dunk me into the - Actually, I'm just going to get you to buy me another Prada dress. Let's make it much easier having out of me last time. It's nice to see that you're simplistically triggered. I'm easily bought. What makes you - Pavlovian response. What in your reporting and your conversations, and then I'll get to what I'm hearing. What makes you sound so confident that Joe Biden is going to step down from the nomination? Because he can't function at the level necessary to be the American president. Right, but he doesn't buy that. I mean, he doesn't buy that. So what's going to get him out?

4:22I understand he doesn't buy that, but I believe that the leadership in the party buys that. I believe that the leadership in the party is looking down ballot and they're seeing a disaster for the House. They're seeing a disaster for the Senate. You and I were sharing information yesterday about New York, one of the bluest states in America. Donald Trump is in striking distance now in New York. The presidential candidate on the Democratic side is going to have to spend advertising money in New York. Trump is only five or six points behind in New York. Now, I know the national poll numbers just came out and it looks like a dead heat, but the national poll numbers don't matter, Katya.

5:02You know that. I know that. There's five or seven states that really matter. And God forbid if a state like New York flipped, the Democrats would really be up against it. And I think, and I said this to you, and I've said this to our viewers and listeners, the Democrats are always better bolder. Okay. The 47-year-old African-American candidate beats the war veteran, the Vietnam War veteran, lifer in the Senate, family generationally tied to the U.S. Navy, the 47-year-old African-American candidate comes in and beats him. The 46-year-old Arkansas governor, Bill Clinton, he's going up against the greatest generation, a World War II hero, a president, an incumbent president.

5:45He comes in and he beats him. Okay. I can give you other examples. Jack Kennedy beats a sitting vice president at age 43, youngest president to be inaugurated from an election, not Teddy Roosevelt, of course, 42. So the boldness, caddy. Okay. So if they don't do it, I think they are imperiled. Could Biden win? Yes, Biden could win. And then what is the aftermath of that? Okay. But I'm just saying to you, I can't unsee what I'm seeing and the voters can't unsee what they're seeing. And these guys are trying to tell you, hey, hey, don't believe your lying eyes. And I'm totally up for this, even though I go to the teleprompter when the head of NATO is retiring.

6:29You get what I'm saying. Okay. So that was what was devastating about the George Clooney op-ed this week in which he said Biden has to step down. And the data point that he cited was that the Biden he had seen three weeks ago when they met for that big fundraiser in California was not the same Biden of 2016, the same Biden of 2020, even the same Biden of recent times. So he said, the Biden you saw in the debate, that is the Biden I saw three weeks ago. And that was pretty devastating. I think there's two reasons I agree with what you're saying that Joe Biden is going to be pushed out. One of them is the money, and that's the George Clooney angle, right?

7:06They can't run if enough big name Democratic donors say, we're not going to support you. And the second is that I know that Nancy Pelosi and the House leadership have seen poll numbers for the House races in November if Joe Biden stays at the top of the ticket. And a congressman I was speaking to last night described them to me as cataclysmic. He said, if we go into this as we're looking at the moment, we will lose so many House seats this November that come 2026, we won't even be able to make it back up again. And I'm hearing all the panic from people in the White House, from people on Capitol Hill, from senators.

7:45We've seen the senator from Vermont who's come out and said, you cannot ignore the data exactly as you've just said, Anthony. The states are moving the Republicans' directions. The counter argument to this is that Joe Biden is stubborn. He is surrounded by people who have a vested interest in him staying in office. One of the people, a former congresswoman said to me, look, Hunter Biden, who is advising Joe Biden at the moment, He wants Joe Biden to be president because the person who can pardon him is Joe Biden, not another Democrat. At what point do we have to believe Joe Biden when he says time and again, I am staying in this?

8:24And can the people who want to go to him to say you have to get out, who holds sway there? Who is it that can go to him? Will they go to him? Are they united? That's I think that is still a little unresolved. I hear all of the panic. I'm just a little unsure about whether Biden himself is going to accept this. But let me ask you a question because you're obviously a great journalist. Is George Clooney close to Barack Obama? Yeah. And look, the reporting is, and it's in Politico, and I know you've heard it, and I have heard it too. I heard it from somebody from the White House who knew both men well, that Barack Obama signed off on that op-ed and has given the green light to George Clooney to go ahead and say that Joe Biden has to get out.

9:09Now, I've also heard people say that it's not Obama that's going to be able to persuade Biden, that Biden does not have enough of a close relationship with Barack Obama, that Barack Obama could go to him himself and say, you have to be the person to get out. Now, Barack Obama could be part of a group, but that relationship is pretty complicated. I mean, Joe Biden still holds some grudges from the fact that Obama didn't tell him to run in 2016, and he feels dissed by Barack Obama. So yeah, I think that George Clooney is speaking for Barack Obama. I'm just not sure that Barack Obama is going to persuade Joe Biden.

9:44I'm going to tell you in my mind the big four, and then I'd like you to react. Okay. So the big four are Hakeem Jeffries, who is the minority leader now, but would likely be the Speaker of the House if the Democrats win. Nancy Pelosi, who I do think has a good relationship with Joe Biden. She's been very respectful to him. She's the former Speaker, and she's also an emeritus person in the party. Chuck Schumer, the most senior senator from the Democrats from New York, okay, who's super worried about these New York races. And then the fourth is what you said. It is the big donor. This is this amorphous group of people.

10:27The big donor is P.O.ed, Caddy. You see, I'm trying to be polite because you're British, okay? You know, I have to say P.O.ed. Bring on the Long Island for me. I can handle it. I can handle it. Okay. Okay, the big donor is pissed off. And let me tell you why they're so pissed. You told me he was on the Peloton. You told me he's sharp as a tack. Don't believe the right wing stuff that's going on. Okay, I fund you with the money. We raised you$250 million. He gets to the podium and he can't put a sentence together and he's incoherent. And so now you've embarrassed me. You've hurt us. Okay. And so there's no going back, Caddy K.

11:08There's no going back. So what is George Clooney going to – okay, Biden, I'm in the race. Now, what is George Clooney going to do? Let me write a new op-ed and say, geez, I was just kidding. Joe Biden is fresh as a daisy. Here's the 2010 Joe Biden. These senators, the one senator that spoke out or the House of Representatives people said, get him out of the race. Okay, no, we were just kidding. So what we're going to do – They'll have to pipe down and swallow it. But he's so damaged at this point. I think that's the argument. inside the party. You have fractured the party. Now, you could, because this is an amazing country, you could change it on a dime and you could say the narrative is the American people want change.

11:5083 % of the American people don't want these two candidates. We're putting up a younger face, a fresher face, and this is going to reignite interest in our party. It's going to reignite interest in what's wrong with the Donald Trump return to this dystopian past that he's describing every night on these rallies, okay? And we're going with this guy or this woman and this block of people. That's their chance to retake the presidency. And I think they really hurt themselves. Let me just finish with this one last thought. If I was a Democratic operative and I wanted Donald Trump to win, I would lie to every donor in America for six months about the aging American president and his coherence.

12:33I would then underhydrate the American president. So when he shows up at the debate, he can barely speak. And you're looking at him like, is this guy going to be okay? Caddy, the only way that debate could have gone worse is if he collapsed on the stage and we had an ambulance take him away. We have to be honest with people. The people see what you and I are seeing, and they can spin it any which way that they want, but forget it. And so they should move on. If they don't, I really do believe Donald Trump is going to trounce them. Trump is out now ripping George Clooney, calling him a rat because he's a disloyal rat.

13:09Because let me tell you why he's doing that, because I know the son of a bitch. He wants to run against the human cadaver, Joe Biden. Yeah, he wants to run against Joe Biden. Okay. And he's like, are you kidding me? If you put in the good looking Gavin Newsom that can school me verbally, I am not going to be happy. Okay. So he's calling George Clooney a rat. And And even if these polls look close, Americans go with strong liars over weak competency. I think it's hard to believe. Was that dramatic enough, by the way? That was good. Yeah. I like the strong liars over weak competency. But that's the truth because that's the truth about this country.

13:49Yeah. So look, the Democrats, every Democrat, I'm not disagreeing with, every Democrat I hear from is saying something similar to what you're saying. I mean, I've had somebody in the White House who has known Joe Biden for decades and who has worked closely with him and who is, you know, an ardent supporter and always has been of Joe Biden's, who is not an Obama person, who said to me that they almost wish Joe Biden would mess up again sooner rather than later so that this discussion was over, so that they could just pull the plug and move on to somebody else. I had a Democratic congressman say to me, look, I wish we could get the message out that many of us who care most about the president want him to know that he can step aside and shore up his legacy.

14:33So I think Democrats are agreed with you, Anthony. I mean, I don't think you're an outlier here. I think the Democrats on the Hill, in the fundraising groups, in the strategy groups, all believe that they are setting themselves up to lose against Donald Trump potentially, or more likely than they would be with another candidate. It's just they have to persuade Joe Biden to get out. And it's his to call, right? No one can force him out. If he decides, I believe, because of this Washington Post-Ipsos poll that you're just quoting that puts them at 46%, 46 % each, and he can go and say, look, you see, all of you elites, and this thing of bashing the elites is driving people on Capitol Hill crazy because it's not just the elites.

15:18They're the most vocal, but it's definitely not just the elites. The American public's been saying for ages that they have concerns about his age. But if he can go and say, look, you see, the polls haven't fallen out. The bottom hasn't fallen out of the polls yet. I am still the best person to run against Donald Trump because what are your alternatives? Kamala Harris. Well, everybody has reservations about her that I've spoken to. So we throw it open. Maybe it's Gretchen Whitmer. Maybe it's Gavin Newsom. Maybe it's some combination of Whitmer and Wes Moore, the governor of Maryland, or some combination of Whitmer and Gavin Newsom.

15:49All of that's untested, right? And they don't have very long to get their names out there. And if it was clear what the alternative was, I think you'd have more Democrats now, given how much private disgruntlement there is. I think you'd have a lot more Democrats coming out if they thought there was a clear winning alternative. I'm going to say something controversial in the hopes that our podcast doesn't get canceled, but also I'd like being controversial. I never knew that about you, Anthony. That's news. Yes. I mean, yeah. This podcast has lasted longer than my White House tenure so far. I think we're on like six Scaramuchis or something.

16:24That's true. Wow. Yeah, this is going very well for me right now. And I'm expecting Goalhanger to give me a watch if I can make it to 10 Scaramuchis. I just got to see what happens here. But he said something the other night. And I said, this son of a bitch, this guy is an entertainer. And he said something the other night. And I want you to respond to what he said. You ready? This is Donald Trump. I said something you mean. Donald Trump. He said, oh, it was fantastic that Joe Biden is a genius to pick Kamala Harris. He's a genius. And you know why he's a genius? Because she's incompetent. And they will never go with her.

17:01And it was an insurance policy to keep him in the race. I want you to respond to that. Yeah. I think that having gone from thinking we're going to run against Kamala Harris, which is what the Trump people used to tell me all of last year that their campaign was going to be about Kamala Harris, they now think that their best chance of winning the White House in November is to run against Joe Biden. And they will play every single day clips from that debate. The Democrats will wish that debate goes away, but the Trump campaign will run them every single day. I think you're right that they have come around to thinking that Kamala Harris or another Democrat is a bigger threat to them than Joe Biden.

17:40I think we'll know, don't you? I think we'll know next week. So we're in this kind of wait and see pattern where every day matters. And next week is the Republican National Convention. Obviously, Democrats didn't want to do something this week during the NATO summit. But once that is over, now that is over, and we head into the Republican National Convention, I think next week, we will get a decision on this. We'll get a decision from Joe Biden, and we'll get a decision from the rest of the Democratic leadership. Okay, you have betting markets in your country, right? You can go down from your flat.

18:15You have a betting market in your country. I'm a regular. Okay, okay. See, this is the stuff that we need to tease out of you in this podcast. Okay, we have to tease this stuff out of you. So would you bet what I'm saying, that he's out of the race? Right now, I would bet that he's out of the race. The Democratic leadership, because of these poll numbers around the House and the Senate, just think that it's unsustainable. I'm just going to add one more sentence. He's out of the race because the poll numbers are unsustainable and he's incoherent, Caddy Kay. He's incoherent. He doesn't have the chops right now to get there.

18:52And he certainly doesn't have the chops to be president in 2028. And they have to move as trustees for their own party and for America. And we will bring you the latest installment of the Game of Thrones, Washington DC style, when we have that information next week. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back to talk about the NATO summit and how America's allies are looking at all of this politics and preparing to do what they are calling Trump-proofing themselves against what might happen in November.

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20:35Welcome back to The Rest is Politics US with me, Katty Kay. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. As if there wasn't enough going on in American politics, this week also saw a huge 75th birthday party to NATO, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the defense organization in Washington, D.C. And you had 30-odd world leaders gathering in the nation's capital to celebrate the achievements of NATO. They were all, of course, consumed, as we have just been talking about, with what's going to happen to Joe Biden. But I think it's worth talking a little bit about NATO and how it's preparing itself at the moment for a possible change of administration in November.

21:16Joe Biden called NATO more powerful than ever, saying that it faced a pivotal moment in the war in Ukraine. He also promised to provide Ukraine with five new strategic air defense systems. And the message clearly of this NATO summit in Washington was to say to Russia, the world is united, the Western world is united against you. We are not letting up. We are going to support Ukraine. And don't think that you can just wait this one out and think that we are going to lose attention or money or commitment to Ukraine. And to a large extent, Anthony, the rallying of NATO after the Russian invasion of Ukraine two and a half years ago has been one of the high points, particularly from foreign policy, of Joe Biden's presidency.

22:05I mean, without Joe Biden's leadership, you would not have had the concerted NATO response to help Ukraine that you did do. I think there's no doubt about that. And this week should have been, were it not for everything else, I think a justifiable celebration of Joe Biden's role in making NATO relevant again. I mean, first of all, everything you're saying is true and there's a lot to discuss here. I just want to make three quick statements. Number one, NATO has done more for the world as an alliance than any other alliance in global history. Number two, from our history over the last 150 years, what ends up happening is totalitarian regimes see democracies as weak.

22:51And they're like, okay, I'm the strong man. There are a bunch of weaklings. There are a bunch of beta male babies. And so we're going to crush them and we're going to roll them. And what's happened over the last 150 years is that the democracies wait. But once they get pushed, they coalesce and they generally beat up on the totalitarians. Why is that? Because democracies have better economies, Katika. Totalitarians can't get the economy going like a democracy because in a flatter, murderocratic system, you get more economic activity. In a totalitarian regime, you get a kleptocracy and corruption.

23:29And so what was amazing about what Joe Biden did is what he spoke out for Western liberalism and he spoke out for the ideas of the democracy. Now, you've got a bunch of right-leaning kooks in this country that are being fed by the Russian government talking points. They're also probably being paid by the Russian government. And they say all this type of nonsense, well, he's expanding NATO, he's putting NATO on Russia's doorstep. All of that is a bunch of nonsense. When the Soviet Union dissolved, the Ukrainian government had the sixth largest nuclear arsenal. And the United States and Bill Clinton 30 years ago made a deal with them, give us the nukes, we're going to protect your sovereignty, which has been besmirched by the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union for 300 years.

24:15So the cause of Western freedom, the cause of Western individuality, individualism, and liberty has been supported by NATO. Joe Biden deserves that credit. One last point, 75 years, Katty K, for the first 74 years, Sweden and Finland, we're good. We don't want to be in NATO. What happened, Katty K? They're now in NATO. What happened? Russia invaded Ukraine. Simple as that. So they know, they know the specter of evil and they know the specter of encroachment from a totalitarian. And they knew that they weren't getting invaded prior. Finland and Sweden said, hey, we'll stay neutral. We're on the border up here with the Russians.

24:59We don't want to piss them off. We'll stay neutral. They're now part of NATO. They're smart people in Finland and Sweden, Cady. They know the threat that Vladimir Putin represents to the West and the ideas of Western liberalism. And here's the irony. Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, You've had this expansion of NATO, which has now increased its border with Russia by 800 miles. You've added the Swedish military entity, which is, I'm told by national security experts, a very good fighting force, well equipped. And so NATO should be in this strong celebratory position as it sits there at the convention center this week in Washington, where they usually do boat shows and fast food shows and comic conventions.

25:44And this week, they were celebrating this thing that has been critical to peace and security in the world for the last 75 years, as you point out. And yet, there's this huge shadow hanging over NATO and its future, just at the moment that it's been revivified, just as it's been expanded. And that shadow is Donald Trump, who has given very conflicted messages about what he plans to do with NATO, on the one hand saying that he would like to pull out of NATO, on the other saying that he wouldn't support Article 5 of NATO, his national security team telling reporters behind the scenes, don't worry, he's actually going to stay committed to it, he's just going to try and get them to spend more money.