0:02

This is a Global Player original podcast. I

0:04

know I will respect the limits of the

0:06

presidential powers I have for three and a

0:09

half years, but

0:11

any president, including Donald Trump, will

0:13

now be free to ignore the

0:15

law. I

0:18

concur with Justice Sotomayor's dissent today.

0:21

She hears what she said. She said, in every use of

0:23

a visual power, the president

0:25

is now a king above the law. With

0:29

fear for our democracy, I dissent.

0:32

End of quote. Associate

0:35

the American people dissent. It

0:37

seems fitting, doesn't it, that

0:39

on the eve of American Independence

0:41

Day, 250 years after

0:45

they got rid of our king,

0:47

King George, the Supreme

0:49

Court has now decided that, well, maybe

0:52

they do quite like having a monarch.

0:55

It's just granted Donald Trump

0:58

immunity from pretty

1:00

much all kinds of criminal prosecution

1:02

for what he's done in office. And

1:05

this isn't just a backward looking thing. What

1:08

if Donald Trump is reelected in November

1:11

and suddenly realizes they're

1:13

in statute. He does

1:15

have king-like powers. What

1:18

then for America? What

1:20

then for the great experiment, as

1:22

it was described, when American democracy

1:24

was born nearly 250 years ago?

1:28

Welcome to News Agents USA. It's

1:37

John. It's Emily. And

1:39

if you read the judgment from the

1:41

Supreme Court and from the majority opinion

1:44

written John Roberts,

1:46

who leads the Supreme Court, a

1:48

conservative juror, it's almost like he

1:50

says, I'm not a racist, but.

1:53

He says, I'm not giving him total

1:56

immunity, but. And then you

1:58

look at the buts and you think, ah, that's a good thing. Actually,

2:01

Donald Trump is being given enormous

2:03

latitude. It's inconceivable to me

2:05

now to see how there can be

2:08

a prosecution for the activities that took

2:10

place on January 6th when

2:12

there was an attempt to ferment an

2:14

insurrection and to stop the peaceful transfer

2:16

of power. And if Donald

2:18

Trump can't be tried for that because that

2:21

was part of his official duties, and

2:23

there's much emphasis played on

2:25

the word official, then

2:28

what can't the President do? So

2:30

let us just run you through what that

2:32

judgement said. The Supreme Court, as you'll know

2:34

by now, is made up,

2:37

comprised of what we would call

2:39

loosely conservative judges and liberal judges.

2:42

And there are currently six conservative-leaning

2:44

judges on that court and three

2:46

liberal. And so you won't be

2:48

surprised that even though the judgement

2:51

was what they call a majority

2:53

ruling, those six conservative

2:55

judges lean very much towards

2:58

favouring immunity for the former

3:00

President Trump, even though it

3:03

was over questions of whether he

3:05

was guilty of trying to overturn

3:07

the last election. And

3:09

the three liberal judges were

3:12

pretty unhappy with what

3:14

the court eventually decided. One

3:17

of them, Justice Sotomayor, called

3:20

Trump a king above the law.

3:22

She said that was the effect

3:24

of the judgement, was to essentially

3:26

place somebody who should be the

3:28

highest elected official in the land,

3:30

should have the highest morals

3:32

and the highest responsibilities of

3:34

the country above the law.

3:36

In other words, giving them

3:39

a king-like status. And

3:41

you know, this is something that goes back

3:43

to the foundations of the

3:45

United States of America, that they looked at

3:47

what Britain had at that time, where you

3:49

had George III, who seemed

3:51

to be an absolute ruler, absolute tyrant,

3:54

and they wanted to draw up a

3:56

constitution which would severely limit the

3:58

power of whoever... which

6:00

he was found guilty on 34 counts

6:03

for that to be delayed. And Judge Marchand, in

6:05

that case, has had to go away and decide

6:07

whether he even delays the

6:09

sentencing. So this is having a

6:11

real time impact on what Trump is

6:14

doing. Trump has called it a big

6:16

win. You know, three syllables, which spell

6:18

out exactly how this is being seen.

6:20

It is a win for the former

6:23

president and means that he will probably

6:25

not face trial and he will probably

6:27

find it easier to go on to

6:29

win the next election if

6:31

he convinces people that he is not to

6:34

blame for what happened last time. Mayless, you

6:36

think of how many times on this podcast

6:38

we've said Donald Trump's claim just doesn't bear

6:40

scrutiny. It's all lies. It's all nonsense. A

6:43

big win is 100% true. Yeah. Donald

6:47

Trump had a massive win at

6:49

the Supreme Court yesterday. And

6:52

if it had been taken as a decision that

6:55

was somehow in a vacuum and it was sort of

6:57

some intellectual dusty discussion about

6:59

what are the limits of presidential

7:01

power. Actually, we do believe for

7:03

various reasons that this is what

7:05

the president- Yeah, if you fight

7:07

a war and if civilians get

7:09

killed, we're not going to prosecute

7:12

you for the death of civilians,

7:14

however egregious that act may be.

7:16

But this wasn't taken in a

7:18

vacuum. This was taken in a

7:20

deeply political context, which raises the

7:22

question of the trustworthiness of

7:24

the Supreme Court. These nine

7:26

justices who in America

7:29

have kind of ruled supreme and

7:31

who've been seen to be the

7:33

people who are the independent arbiters

7:36

of the law, of the constitution, of

7:38

what it means. And

7:40

you've got to say after yesterday,

7:43

they start to look like grubby

7:45

hacks who are just doing the

7:47

political dirty work of

7:49

a former president who's got a few problems. Yeah.

7:52

I mean, he laid the ground for this in

7:54

a way. And by that, I mean that when

7:56

he was on the campaign trail in 2016, he

7:58

said, vote for me and I will pat the

8:00

the court with conservative justices. And then he won

8:02

the election. I mean, we now know with campaign

8:04

finance, and all the

8:06

rest of it, those convictions relate back to how

8:08

he then campaigned in 2016, but leave

8:11

that to one side. He won

8:13

the election. He appointed three conservative

8:15

justices. He promised that Roe v. Wade

8:17

would be overturned if they got in.

8:19

They came in, they overturned Roe v.

8:21

Wade. I mean, this is playing out

8:23

exactly according to a playbook that he

8:25

laid out to, let's call them evangelical

8:27

voters or conservative voters back in 2016,

8:31

which has come to pass. If you

8:33

were one of those conservative judges, there

8:36

is probably a little bit of you

8:38

that feels it is repaying in some

8:40

shape or form the debt of

8:43

gratitude that you owe Trump for your

8:45

job there. You heard at the beginning

8:47

of Joe Biden's very strong, very staunch

8:49

reaction to that ruling. He didn't hold

8:51

back there. On the Republican side,

8:54

this is more the kind of

8:56

response we've been hearing. Look, there's

8:58

all sorts of hyperbole tonight and

9:00

just this fantastical,

9:02

these hypotheticals they've made up, future presidents

9:05

are going to turn into assassins and

9:07

all the rest. It's madness. Listen, remember

9:09

this, the president and the vice president

9:12

are the only two offices in our

9:14

constitutional system that are elected by all

9:16

the people. No one who is elected

9:18

to that office is going to be

9:21

prone to this kind of crazy criminal

9:23

activity. What the court is saying here

9:25

follows common sense and of course our

9:28

constitution as well. You have to have

9:30

the president with the ability to make

9:32

difficult decisions hourly, daily, and not be

9:35

worried about rogue prosecutors going after them

9:37

at some point in the future. That's

9:39

not just some Trump fangirl surrogate. That

9:41

is the speaker of the house there,

9:44

Mike Johnson, the third most senior elected

9:46

official in America coming down on the

9:48

side of what the Supreme Court has

9:51

done and saying that the left are

9:53

acting with hyperbole and hysteria. Yeah, you

9:55

just wonder if the boot had been

9:57

on the other foot. there

10:00

had been a Democrat president who had

10:02

tried to ferment an insurrection and stop

10:04

the peaceful transfer of power, whether they'd

10:07

have been quite a sanguine about

10:09

a ruling like this. Because of course the upshot of

10:11

this is that we're not

10:13

going to see any trial over

10:15

whether there was serious wrongdoing. You

10:17

know, he's talking about these hypothetical

10:19

cases. Well, the hypothetical became reality

10:21

on January the 6th 2021. I

10:24

was with a US lawyer yesterday when I

10:26

was in Paris and she

10:28

was taking me through this other Supreme

10:30

Court ruling which we haven't even discussed,

10:33

called the Chevron ruling, about

10:35

environmental protection and the limits

10:37

of federal government to impose

10:39

regulations on companies. She

10:41

says it is epic that people

10:44

have not grasped what a huge decision

10:46

this is as well by the Supreme

10:48

Court that is going to give corporations

10:51

much freer rain to do what

10:53

they like in terms of legal

10:55

protection and that is going past

10:58

unnoticed. The Supreme Court is making

11:00

profound changes right now to

11:02

modern America. Roe versus Wade, duty

11:05

of corporations and now the limits

11:07

of presidential power. It cannot be

11:09

overstated how significant this is. Well,

11:11

joining us now is the Supreme

11:13

Court correspondent at the New York

11:15

Times, Adam Liptak, who has

11:17

been watching this very closely and

11:19

can explain some of the legal

11:21

niceties of what has just happened

11:23

in America. How

11:34

surprised were you by the 6th 3

11:37

majority verdict from the Supreme Court? I wasn't

11:39

surprised given that there was an argument in

11:41

which it was pretty clear they were headed

11:43

in that direction. But

11:45

before the argument, the conventional wisdom

11:47

in my thinking was that

11:51

this was an outlandish claim on

11:53

Trump's part, that it was too

11:56

brazen for even

11:58

this Supreme Court to accept. But

12:01

by the time it was argued, it seemed clear

12:03

that they were thinking that

12:05

the American president does

12:07

have extraordinary powers and ought

12:09

to be protected even from

12:11

the criminal law after he

12:14

leaves office. And that's a

12:17

bold move. So just to

12:19

ask a really simple question now,

12:21

but Watergate, can we

12:23

now say that there was nothing wrong with Watergate? Well,

12:26

right. I mean, Nixon

12:28

resigned. He was

12:30

pardoned. He accepted the

12:32

pardon. That entire construct

12:34

was based on the idea that

12:36

he was subject to prosecution after

12:39

he left office. Now,

12:41

the Supreme Court does draw a distinction

12:43

between official acts and purely private ones.

12:47

But what Nixon was fundamentally accused of,

12:50

using the apparatus of the

12:52

government to go after his political enemies,

12:55

would under the Supreme Court's thinking be

12:58

official conduct and thus protected? And

13:01

so your question is absolutely

13:03

right. This revises our

13:05

whole understanding of how

13:07

the American justice system works, including

13:11

in one of the key moments, Watergate.

13:14

And the Supreme Court judgment has

13:17

clarified that this essentially sets a precedent,

13:19

that it is not just about Donald

13:21

Trump. It's for anything that happens in

13:23

the future. Is that

13:25

right? I mean, does it? Would

13:27

it support Joe Biden if,

13:29

for example, he acted against

13:31

Trump now? That's what

13:33

the Supreme Court says. Now, you

13:36

can have your doubts

13:38

about whether the Supreme Court means

13:40

what it says in every context,

13:43

but it very clearly goes

13:45

out of its way to say, the majority does, that

13:48

this is not about Donald Trump. This is not

13:50

about a president. This is about the presidency. So

13:54

if they mean what they say,

13:57

this would allow Biden to

13:59

use his... office to do all kinds

14:01

of mischief. I mean, even getting rid of Trump.

14:03

Yeah. So he could,

14:05

I mean, this is so fascinating. So

14:08

Joe Biden could now say that Donald

14:10

Trump presents a danger to US democracy.

14:12

I'm having him detained. And

14:14

because of the potential for unrest, let's not

14:16

have an election in November 2024. Well,

14:20

as for using the Justice Department

14:22

to arrest Trump, that

14:25

seems to be blessed by the Supreme Court. Can't

14:27

throw an election maybe a different

14:29

matter. Okay. An extraordinary position to

14:31

be in. And I guess the wider

14:33

question, Adam, is what is

14:36

this doing to public

14:38

trust in the Supreme Court?

14:40

Because, you know, I

14:42

sort of came of age under the,

14:45

you know, Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg

14:47

years. And there was something so majestic

14:49

about the Supreme Court that you managed

14:51

to say, it doesn't matter what party,

14:54

it doesn't matter what side you believed

14:56

in their adherence to something so pure,

14:59

which was, you know, America's commitment

15:01

to justice. Is that starting to

15:03

wear thin now? Starting

15:05

with the overruling of Roe

15:08

v. Wade, the

15:10

precedent that established the constitutional right to

15:12

abortion, followed by a

15:15

drop in public approval ratings, followed

15:18

by ethics scandals, notably

15:20

including justices Clarence Thomas

15:22

and Samuel Alito, who

15:24

participated in

15:27

this Trump case, notwithstanding the

15:29

fact that there were calls

15:31

for their recusal because their wives had been

15:34

active in various ways in this

15:36

general area. So against that background,

15:38

which is already really rough for

15:40

the Supreme Court's prestige and authority,

15:43

this additional step is not going to do

15:45

them much good, any good,

15:48

with broad segments of the American public. Do

15:50

you think they care? Are the

15:52

Amy Coney Barrett's and the Brett Kavanaugh's

15:54

alarmed by this? I

15:56

would have thought so, and I would have thought

15:58

Chief Justice Roberts in. particular, but

16:01

Roberts wrote this muscular majority

16:04

opinion that the

16:06

dissent says actually creates a kind of king.

16:08

You may recall we fought a revolution to

16:10

try to get rid of a king and

16:13

it seems the Supreme Court at least to hear the

16:15

dissent has reinstalled one.

16:18

It's worth stating isn't it that

16:20

the founding fathers when they are

16:22

drawing up the US Constitution their

16:25

powerful desire was not to be

16:27

George III, was to get away

16:29

from the kind of idea of

16:31

the prerogative of monarchy and

16:34

yet this is where they seem to have

16:36

gone back to. It's extraordinary.

16:39

This is not how I expected

16:41

this Supreme Court under

16:43

so much pressure to end

16:46

the most significant term even without this

16:48

case that it's had in a long

16:50

time, but to make this the capstone

16:53

on the last day of its term in

16:55

the midst of a presidential election it's

16:58

quite extraordinary. One of the questions I

17:00

guess some on the left of the Democratic Party are

17:02

asking is why didn't

17:04

Biden play dirty while he could? Why

17:06

didn't he pack the court early? Basically,

17:08

knowledge that it was always going to

17:10

be a politicized body and that all

17:12

he had to do was sort out

17:14

the numbers, the maths. I'm

17:16

not sure he had the legislative power to

17:18

do that. I mean that would have required

17:21

overcoming a filibuster and so on. And

17:24

Joe Biden and really with

17:26

vanishing a few exceptions all American

17:29

presidents have worked within

17:31

conventions and norms that

17:34

didn't give rise to things like trying to

17:36

subvert an election after you've lost it. So

17:39

we're in a different land now. The

17:41

Nixon example was a good one. Nixon resigned.

17:44

He probably could have tough it out, but

17:47

on a bipartisan basis leaders of his party

17:49

said you've lost our faith. We're

17:52

in a whole different world now. And what

17:54

we seem to have witnessed in America and

17:56

certainly I don't know the second half of

17:59

the 20th century. onwards is this

18:01

accretion of presidential power,

18:03

of executive power, where

18:06

the three co-equal branches of government

18:08

seem to, forget three

18:10

co-equal branches, there is now one

18:13

overridingly important branch of government, and that's

18:15

the executive that resides in 1600 Pennsylvania

18:18

Avenue. I think that's

18:21

largely correct, although you could make the argument

18:24

that the Supreme Court was not

18:26

exactly giving up power itself, it

18:28

was saying we'll decide whether

18:31

something is an official act that

18:34

protects you from criminal prosecution, or whether

18:37

this is something different. So

18:39

the Supreme Court also reserves for

18:41

itself substantial power. And just

18:43

one other kind of minor follow-up to that,

18:45

of course, is that, I mean,

18:47

we are saying now, that

18:49

the trial of Donald Trump for

18:52

January the 6th, or whatever, is

18:54

never going to happen before November's election.

18:57

I don't see how that's possible. The

18:59

Court has instructed the trial judge to

19:02

do substantial work to see

19:04

whether there's some part of this indictment

19:07

that can survive, and maybe there's a

19:09

sliver that can survive. But

19:11

even that fact-incentive review of separating

19:13

out the different elements in the

19:16

case will eat up so much time that

19:18

we're not going to have a trial before

19:20

the election. And of course, if he wins, he

19:23

can instruct the Justice Department to scuttle

19:25

the case. Adam Niptuk, thank

19:27

you so much. Fantastic to have you with

19:29

us. Thanks, Adam. Thank you. In

19:32

a moment, we'll be covering the

19:34

fallout from that abysmal television debate

19:37

that spooked Democrats right across America.

19:39

Joe Biden's faltering performance has been

19:41

widely commented on, but has it

19:43

actually changed minds at the top

19:46

of the party? The

19:48

News Agents USA with Emily Maitlis

19:51

and John Sople. The

19:55

News Agents USA. So

20:00

in the early hours of Friday we brought you our

20:03

assessment of that overnight debate

20:06

and after we told you

20:08

what we thought I went away and I

20:10

wondered whether we had been sort

20:13

of a bit too knee-jerk, had we been unjust,

20:15

had we been overly critical, it was only a

20:17

90 minute debate and all the rest of it

20:20

and this week I

20:23

don't think so. I mean bizarrely the

20:25

further away we get from that debate

20:27

the more obvious it becomes to me

20:30

just how cataclysmic that

20:32

moment was, not because

20:34

it was a TV moment but

20:36

because it let the public see

20:39

something that arguably many

20:41

people close to the president

20:43

already knew. It exposed

20:45

something that they were trying not

20:47

to make publicly known. As

20:50

the days have gone by since and I also

20:52

reflected similarly have we been too harsh on Biden,

20:54

it was just a 90 minutes of TV, you

20:56

know, let's not go. We've all done shit telly,

20:59

we've all done crap things which we wish we

21:01

could redo and then

21:03

I heard Biden the next night in

21:05

North Carolina and

21:07

for a moment, I mean it

21:09

was only a moment but for

21:11

a moment I thought yeah maybe

21:13

I have got this wrong when

21:15

he sounded quite together. Folks, I

21:19

don't walk as easy as I used to, I don't

21:21

speak as smoothly as I used to, I don't

21:23

debate as well as I used to but

21:26

I know what I do know, I know

21:29

how to tell the truth, I

21:37

know, I know,

21:39

I know right from wrong, I

21:44

know how to do this job, I

21:47

know how to get things done, I

21:51

know what communities of America know, when

21:53

you get knocked down you get back up. Look,

21:58

it's a great clip. I don't

22:01

walk like I used to, I don't speak like I

22:03

used to, I don't debate like I used to. He

22:05

was reading off autocue, he was reading off teleprompter and

22:08

I'm sorry you can still be

22:10

quite old and decrepit and be

22:12

able to read autocue. But

22:14

you don't have autocue if you're in a meeting

22:17

with Putin and you've got big decisions to make.

22:19

You don't have autocue when you are having to

22:21

think on your feet and deliver for

22:23

the American people day in day out.

22:25

And if there have been these senior

22:27

moments where he loses

22:29

his way as he did in

22:32

the debate with Donald Trump, we need to

22:34

know about that and you just feel there's

22:36

been a bit of a kind of don't

22:38

mention it, let's not don't talk about it

22:40

at all. I am really furious on behalf

22:42

of the American public that they are being

22:44

gaslit, that there is a moral

22:46

indignation coming from the White House of

22:49

how dare you. We're the good

22:51

guys, we're the honest guys in this. How

22:53

dare you raise these questions about Joe Biden

22:55

undermining our chances in November. Go and talk

22:57

about Trump's lies, which we do, I mean

22:59

every day. And don't draw attention to this,

23:01

it was just one bad debate for the

23:03

performers. And I think, no, I'm sorry, anyone

23:07

who watched that would realise that

23:09

Joe Biden is a

23:12

diminished figure as a

23:14

result of the ageing process and

23:16

that trying to imagine which

23:19

you are asking voters to do, that

23:21

he would be fit to serve for

23:23

another four years is just

23:25

preposterous. Yeah, I mean, if you asked people

23:28

four years ago whether they thought age was

23:30

an issue for Joe Biden, I

23:32

think it was less than 35% said yes, we

23:34

do. When you ask the

23:37

question today, post debate, it is above

23:39

70. So the electorate, the viewer,

23:42

the voter is seeing something that

23:44

people at the top of the

23:47

Democratic Party are still pretending isn't

23:49

happening. And I want to take

23:51

you into the observations now of

23:53

Karl Bernstein, you'll know that name

23:55

because he is one of the

23:57

foremost investigative journalists America has, he

23:59

was the man who broke Watergate,

24:01

etc. And he has

24:03

offered CNN this insight into

24:05

what people around Joe Biden have

24:08

been telling him. Well, these are

24:10

people, several of them who are very close

24:12

to President Biden, who love him, have supported

24:14

him and been among among them are some

24:16

people who have raised a lot of money

24:18

for him. And they

24:20

are adamant that what we saw

24:22

the other night, the Joe Biden

24:25

we saw is

24:27

not a one-off, that there have

24:29

been 15, 20 occasions in

24:32

the last year and a half when

24:34

the president has appeared somewhat

24:36

as he did in that

24:38

horror show that we witnessed.

24:40

And what's so significant is the people

24:43

that this is coming from and also

24:45

how many people around the president are

24:47

aware of such incidents, including

24:50

some reporters incidentally who have

24:52

witnessed some of them. But

24:54

here we see tonight, as

24:56

these people say, President Biden at

24:58

his absolute best. And yet

25:01

these people who have supported him, loved

25:04

him, campaigned for

25:06

him, see him often, say that

25:08

in the last six

25:10

months particularly, there has been a

25:12

marked incidence of cognitive decline and

25:15

physical infirmity. What I wonder about,

25:17

I mean, what he said there really

25:19

stunned me, actually, because this

25:22

is a man, an investigative

25:24

journalist, who talked about

25:26

uncovering stuff in the White

25:29

House. And yes, of

25:31

course, I'm sounding overdramatic. Nobody's accusing

25:33

Joe Biden of a Watergate cover-up.

25:35

But he is talking there about

25:37

a kind of conspiracy of silence,

25:39

right? He's talking about people around

25:41

Biden knowing the state he has

25:43

been in for maybe up to

25:46

a year, certainly in the

25:48

last few months. And I would say,

25:50

as I said last week, I was very

25:52

resistant to this narrative that Biden was too

25:54

old. I really, really pushed back. I thought

25:56

it was a sort of maggotalking point and

25:58

it was pretty lazy, actually. But

26:00

I think incrementally it has become

26:02

more apparent. And the tragedy of

26:04

this whole thing for Democrats, quite

26:07

frankly, is that Trump should be

26:09

really easy to beat. I mean,

26:11

he should be so easy to

26:13

beat with virtually anyone who isn't

26:15

actually making you have a

26:17

not in your stomach wobble because he

26:20

might not reach the end of the

26:22

sentence coherently. My worry is

26:24

not that Joe Biden is making it easier for

26:26

Donald Trump to win or lose the election. My

26:28

question is a simple one. Is he fit to

26:31

be president for the next four years? And

26:33

I think on the evidence that we saw in

26:35

that debate and what you

26:37

have subsequently heard from people around

26:39

the White House is

26:41

that he's probably not. You see, I

26:43

feel the opposite. I think he's probably

26:45

fine at being president for four years

26:47

because we all know that president is

26:49

something that is not actually a one

26:51

man job. You know, contrary to the

26:53

US image of it, he has got

26:56

advisors, he's got a great cabinet, he's

26:58

got people around him. He's got young,

27:00

brilliant brains and minds. The question is

27:02

on that kind of performance, and

27:04

that's what we're talking about, frankly, we're

27:06

talking about electoral campaign performance. He will

27:09

lose. And Donald Trump has already told

27:11

us about exactly what he has

27:13

planned, Project 25, for

27:16

the next four years. Why would

27:18

Democrats take that chance if they

27:20

didn't need to? Yeah. And Project 25

27:22

is that kind of body of

27:24

work that's been done by Trump's supporters, lawyers,

27:27

lobbyists, who are kind of outlining

27:29

the sort of legislation and the

27:31

sort of executive power that they

27:33

believe the president should have. And,

27:35

you know, there are remnants of

27:37

an independent civil service in America.

27:39

Yeah, that goes. That goes. But

27:41

I guess the question that we asked on

27:44

Friday was whether senior Democrats would start voicing

27:46

their own fears out loud. And they always

27:48

talk about Democrats being, you know, bedwetters or

27:50

hand wringers to suggest they're all kind of

27:53

paranoid and they always fear the worst is

27:55

going to happen all the time. But

27:58

actually, you are starting to hear. here

28:00

a few, very few senior

28:02

voices who are now saying it as

28:05

it is. And one of those is

28:08

James Carvell, who perhaps will be

28:10

best known to you for coining

28:12

that phrase in the Clinton campaign,

28:14

it's the economy stupid, right? He

28:16

sort of nailed where voters were

28:18

on that issue decades ago. And

28:20

he was the one who came

28:22

out and said, why are

28:25

we pretending to voters when they are telling

28:27

us how they see it? Just have a

28:29

listen. If the Democratic Party is so

28:31

committed to the status quo, and

28:34

so committed to sticking with something

28:36

that three quarters of the

28:39

country doesn't want, then

28:41

we have to say why do

28:43

we exist? What are we here

28:45

for? And in

28:48

mind, we were here to change civil rights.

28:50

We were here to bring change in Medicare

28:52

and do great things and

28:55

family and medical leave and expanding

28:57

health care and great things

28:59

that are part of my party. And why I

29:02

love it. But if we can't bring

29:04

something that people want, I

29:07

have to doubt our rationale for being

29:09

here. I really do. So

29:12

James Carvell calling it out, as

29:15

he always does with great clarity

29:18

and passion. And there have been a number

29:20

of other strategists and a number of other

29:22

people who have been close to Joe

29:24

Biden who have said similar

29:26

things. But actually the most

29:28

striking thing for me is

29:30

how few members of Congress, how

29:33

few of the people with

29:35

direct influence now have come out

29:37

and said those same things. For

29:39

the most part, they're all staying

29:42

stum. Now, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

29:44

from Rhode Island, he

29:46

did sort of break cover a bit. Your honest reaction

29:48

to the debate? I think like a

29:50

lot of people, I was pretty horrified. I think

29:52

people want to make sure that this is a

29:54

campaign that's ready to go and win, that

29:57

the president and his team are

29:59

being candid. with us about his condition

30:01

that this was a real anomaly and

30:04

not just the way he is these days.

30:06

But overwhelmingly, people are staying silent and they're

30:09

scared to rock the boat. And there is

30:11

even talk of the Democrat National Committee, the

30:13

DNC, almost short cutting the convention in August

30:15

to say we are going to approve the

30:18

nomination of Joe Biden now in the next

30:20

two weeks to shut down all discussion about

30:22

whether he is the candidate. You're a man

30:24

who loves a bet and I will meet

30:27

you about now. I think we've been having

30:29

this bet on and off for a year.

30:32

I bet they do not replace Joe Biden.

30:34

All the sound, all the fury, all the

30:36

talk, all the kind of taking us right

30:38

to the edge will end

30:40

nowhere. Because as we've said before, the

30:42

only people who can really decide are

30:45

Joe Biden and Jill Biden. And

30:47

they are committed to staying in the

30:49

race. And I think importantly, you kind

30:51

of have to understand this, that anyone

30:54

in the inner circle who

30:56

is brave enough to go to Joe Biden

30:58

and say, I don't think that

31:00

you are the best candidate for president would

31:03

instantly have to resign their job because

31:06

there's no way that you can stay in a campaign

31:08

whilst believing he's not the best candidate for the job.

31:11

And I doubt anyone is prepared

31:13

to take that risk, quite frankly.

31:15

It's very interesting, isn't it? Because it

31:18

seems that there are very

31:20

few people of the tight inner circle

31:22

around Joe Biden. There's Jill Biden, as

31:24

you've said, the first lady. There is

31:26

Valerie, his sister. There's a guy called

31:29

Ted Kaufman, who's a political strategist who's

31:31

been around him for years and years

31:33

and years. But there aren't that many

31:35

others. And I've even seen some scapegoating

31:38

going on of Ron Klain,

31:40

his former chief of staff, who prepared

31:42

him for the debate that he had come

31:44

up short and somehow it was Ron Klain's

31:46

fault that Joe Biden did so badly. Too

31:49

many numbers, too many details, too many

31:51

numbers, too many facts, too much to remember.

31:53

And it just confused him. But even that

31:55

suggestion is patronizing in the extreme. You

31:58

know, there aren't that many who can have an influence. on

32:00

what Joe Biden does. One of the few

32:02

who does is his wife, Dr. Jill Biden,

32:05

and we'll be talking about her Vogue cover

32:07

in just a moment. The

32:10

News Agents USA with Emily Maitless

32:13

and John Sople. The

32:17

News Agents USA. So

32:20

the newest US

32:23

Vogue cover has just dropped and

32:25

it features the President's

32:27

wife, the First Lady, Jill Biden,

32:30

looking off camera, long white coat,

32:32

stunning. And it

32:34

is starting to generate a new

32:37

narrative about

32:40

who is running

32:43

the presidency and

32:45

who is behind the Biden

32:47

campaign. And I would

32:49

just say a word of warning,

32:51

we have seen some of this rhetoric

32:53

before and I would

32:55

call it sexist, possibly misogynist. I

32:58

think it was the same kind

33:00

of talk when Hillary Clinton was

33:02

First Lady and they tried to

33:05

make out she was this Machiavellian

33:07

manipulator of her husband, Bill. Clearly,

33:09

I think Hillary Clinton, we

33:12

now know, did not have quite as much

33:14

control over Bill Clinton as she might have

33:16

liked. Look, the idea of the Lady Macbeth

33:18

in politics has been around for a long

33:20

time. And I think it can be really

33:22

sexist just to say, oh, she's pulling the

33:24

strings and he doesn't know what he's doing,

33:26

la, la, la. She is a powerful figure.

33:28

She always has been a powerful figure. I

33:31

mean, I remember just as a vignette at

33:33

the G7 in Cornwall, when

33:36

Joe Biden came and sat at the

33:38

table next to us where we

33:40

were just having a drink and

33:42

Jill Biden, and it was

33:44

very much Jill Biden who decided when it

33:46

was time to go, it was very much

33:48

Jill Biden who was in charge. How's

33:52

it going, Mr. President? You enjoying it here? We're

33:55

enjoying our walk. Could

33:58

do with more sunshine. I'll

34:00

tell you, this is so beautiful, it doesn't even need

34:02

this time. Have

34:08

a good evening, Sam. Thank you. Can

34:10

we have some private time? It was absolutely apparent,

34:12

just from that very brief encounter I

34:14

had then. And

34:17

so Jill Biden does play a big role,

34:19

and I think that she is the one

34:21

person who could, could

34:24

say to him, you've got to get out, but

34:26

what is absolutely clear to me now is

34:29

that that's not what she's saying. Yeah,

34:31

I just think we are going to

34:33

see, and I'd sort of say, watch

34:35

out for this, we are going to

34:37

see more clips being disseminated of Jill

34:39

Biden standing at the podium ahead of

34:41

Joe Biden, of Jill Biden and her

34:43

response to, you know, a debate or

34:46

an interview or whatever, because I think

34:48

it serves a certain

34:51

type of America's right

34:53

to project her as

34:56

the controlling, slightly witchy woman.

34:59

And it's true, you know, she does have a

35:01

powerful role in his life, she has a very

35:03

powerful role in being his support

35:05

and his aid, as many spouses on both

35:08

sides do, but I just

35:10

say, watch out to see how she

35:12

is being portrayed in

35:14

the right-wing media in the weeks ahead,

35:16

because I think something is starting to

35:19

shift, because they think it will take

35:21

votes away from Biden. We

35:23

will see you next week. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.