Verdict with Ted Cruz - February 09, 2024


Joe Biden is Incompetent, HIS OWN DOJ ARGUES!


Episode Stats


Length

42 minutes

Words per minute

162.70503

Word count

6,861

Sentence count

526

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

11

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz and Ben Fergusons react to a new report from the Justice Department saying that Joe Biden is not mentally competent to stand trial, and could be a danger to the United States if given the power to launch nuclear weapons.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.540 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.300 Welcome.
00:00:06.040 It is a verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you, Senator, for about 45 minutes.
00:00:13.080 Tonight, you and I are doing this at 1230 a.m.
00:00:17.240 There was a moment in this country where the media, the White House press corps, Democrats
00:00:23.200 and Republicans were wondering if Joe Biden was going to step down as president of the
00:00:28.540 United States of America after the special counsel report called him, quote, an elderly
00:00:34.420 man with a poor memory who was so deteriorated with his cognitive decline, they couldn't
00:00:42.080 charge him with crimes even if they wanted to.
00:00:45.600 Your reaction?
00:00:47.820 Well, today, the U.S. Department of Justice released a formal report laying out the evidence
00:00:57.100 that the sitting president of the United States is not competent to stand trial.
00:01:05.300 That is extraordinary.
00:01:08.100 Look, today was a big news day.
00:01:10.760 Today, the Senate capitulated on securing the border and passed or moved forward with the
00:01:19.340 Ukraine funding bill.
00:01:21.120 Today, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Colorado case about whether Donald Trump
00:01:28.540 should be thrown off the ballot.
00:01:30.360 And what does it say that both of those have been relegated to the B and C story in every
00:01:36.860 news broadcast in America?
00:01:39.100 Well, that's because what broke later today was so damn big.
00:01:45.400 Listen, you and I and kind of anyone with eyes and common sense have been observing for a long
00:01:52.720 time that Joe Biden's cognitive decline is massive.
00:01:56.380 But it's easy for some observers to dismiss that and say, you know, these these guys are
00:02:02.680 biased.
00:02:03.220 They're partisans.
00:02:04.020 They don't like Biden.
00:02:05.060 So what they're saying is not true.
00:02:06.500 Now, in this instance, the people speaking are the Biden Department of Justice and not
00:02:15.860 any Department of Justice.
00:02:17.260 This is a Department of Justice that has proven itself the most politicized and partisan Department
00:02:22.520 of Justice in history.
00:02:24.460 And they have argued.
00:02:26.920 So, for example, I'm going to read you a paragraph from the report.
00:02:29.780 In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden's memory was worse.
00:02:36.320 He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview
00:02:42.480 when his term ended, quote, if it was 2013, when did I stop being vice president?
00:02:49.220 And forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began, quote, in 2009.
00:02:56.180 Am I still vice president?
00:02:59.300 He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Bo died.
00:03:06.900 And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important
00:03:14.220 to him.
00:03:15.520 Among other things, he mistakenly said he, quote, had a real difference of opinion with General
00:03:23.860 Carl Eitkenberry, when in fact, Eitkenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly
00:03:32.140 in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.
00:03:35.740 All of that was authored by the Biden Department of Justice.
00:03:40.020 And when they are describing the sitting president as a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory, 0.97
00:03:48.540 the natural question for anyone to say is, holy crap, if he's not competent to stand trial, 0.97
00:03:55.180 why is he the commander in chief with the authority to send our sons and daughters into harm's way? 0.96
00:04:01.540 Why does he have access to the nuclear codes?
00:04:04.340 Understand the description here.
00:04:06.580 They say you couldn't charge him with a crime because he's he's not aware of enough to have
00:04:11.600 the requisite mental intent.
00:04:13.300 And yet Joe Biden tonight, if he so desired, could literally exterminate humanity from the
00:04:20.160 face of the planet as commander in chief.
00:04:22.820 If he gave the order, launch the nuclear weapons now, unless the military refused to obey the
00:04:32.180 commander in chief, Joe Biden could exterminate every life on this planet. 0.68
00:04:36.300 And if he's not mentally competent to stand trial, that is terrifying.
00:04:42.080 The other part, and I mentioned this at the beginning, and I want to play this for you on Fox.
00:04:46.300 Kayleigh McEnany, former White House press secretary, came out and talked about the shock in Washington,
00:04:51.740 talked about the shock of the president trying to respond in an angry way to this report that had come out
00:04:59.340 holding this impromptu press conference.
00:05:02.440 Listen to this.
00:05:03.260 I just saw an unmitigated disaster play out before our very eyes.
00:05:08.380 We just watched a wounded political animal hobble to a podium and react with defensiveness,
00:05:16.220 with anger.
00:05:17.580 And you know it's bad, Jesse, when you have the White House press corps.
00:05:22.120 They are essentially an extension of the Joe Biden press and communications team.
00:05:27.140 When they are shouting at him, asking repeatedly, are you going to step aside, Mr. President?
00:05:33.300 The CNN correspondent asking that.
00:05:35.700 When NBC, NBC of all places, writes a headline,
00:05:40.120 a nightmare special counsel report triggers panic among Democrats.
00:05:45.560 And when you have a president who, for 45 minutes, announces a press conference with no topic,
00:05:52.940 giving the world 45 minutes to speculate, is he stepping aside?
00:05:58.160 What would life be like under a President Kamala Harris?
00:06:01.200 For 45 minutes, the nation got to feel that panic.
00:06:04.660 And I don't think they will forget it come November.
00:06:06.820 By the way, Senator, this was real.
00:06:12.240 I was in Fox News in New York City doing a hit when all this broke.
00:06:18.080 And my phone exploded.
00:06:19.860 Everyone in the building's phone was exploding with people asking the question,
00:06:25.060 oh my gosh, is Joe Biden about to say he's stepping down?
00:06:28.640 Or at the bare minimum say, I am no longer running for President of the United States of America.
00:06:33.260 That was real, and the entire world was thinking this, including our adversaries.
00:06:38.540 Yeah, our adversaries, our allies, the Democrat Party.
00:06:42.820 Look, we have talked about at length how Democrats and their supplicant cheerleaders in the media
00:06:52.200 were getting cold feet on Joe Biden.
00:06:54.960 And I had previously said on this podcast that I thought the odds were about 50-50
00:07:00.280 that Democrats at the convention this coming summer would pull the cord on Joe Biden,
00:07:07.300 yank him out, and replace him with Michelle Obama. 1.00
00:07:11.060 I have to say after today I'm going to adjust those odds from 50-50 to about 65-35.
00:07:17.800 I think they have increased substantially.
00:07:20.000 I think it is now significantly more likely than not
00:07:23.780 that Democrats will not have Joe Biden on the ballot.
00:07:29.600 And listen, the problem is, if you're a Democrat hack and you're spinning,
00:07:37.960 how do you spin this away?
00:07:40.160 They're used to saying, oh, those are just partisans.
00:07:43.560 Those are their favorite phrase, MAGA Republicans.
00:07:46.100 Well, the one thing we know is the Biden Department of Justice, they are not MAGA Republicans. 0.71
00:07:52.920 And this is his own Department of Justice saying he has severely diminished mental faculties.
00:07:59.020 And then I got to tell you, Ben, he made it worse.
00:08:02.220 He made it worse by, A, for 45 minutes, nobody knew what the press conference was going to be.
00:08:08.040 And everyone was like, oh, my God, are we going to have a President Kamala Harris?
00:08:11.060 Like, that was really frightening.
00:08:12.360 But then when he got up there, he did not perform well.
00:08:18.180 And I think that only increased the concerns.
00:08:21.640 And so we ought to listen to a portion of his press conference that occurred on Thursday night.
00:08:32.340 And let's point this out, too.
00:08:34.460 The media, listen to them in the background.
00:08:37.500 Joe Biden, as president, has never had to deal with a media that was this in his face.
00:08:44.320 I would even argue this hostile to him.
00:08:47.140 They've always given him softball pitches.
00:08:50.300 Something changed in the media tonight, and you could hear it and watch it in real time.
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00:10:16.060 Now, listen to the media completely turn like piranhas on Joe Biden.
00:10:22.400 It's incredible.
00:10:23.360 Here it is.
00:10:24.540 Thank you, and I'll take some questions.
00:10:26.120 President Biden, something the special counsel said in his report is that one of the reasons you were not charged
00:10:33.300 is because, in his description, you are a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.
00:10:40.840 I'm well-meaning, and I'm an elderly man, and I know what the hell I'm doing.
00:10:44.400 I've been president, and I put this country back on its feet.
00:10:47.440 I don't need his recommendation.
00:10:48.940 How bad is your memory, and can you continue as president?
00:10:52.720 My memory is so bad, I can let you speak.
00:10:57.900 Do you know your memory has gotten worse?
00:11:00.440 Look, my memory has not gotten worse.
00:11:02.220 My memory is fine.
00:11:03.940 My memory, take a look at what I've done since I've become president.
00:11:07.120 None of you thought I could pass any of the things I got passed.
00:11:09.840 How'd that happen?
00:11:10.500 You know, I guess I just forgot what was going on.
00:11:13.680 Mr. President, Mr. President.
00:11:15.460 Do voters have concerns about your age?
00:11:17.800 How are you going to assuage them?
00:11:18.940 And do you fear that this report is only going to fuel further concerns about your age?
00:11:23.000 Only by some of you.
00:11:24.760 Mr. President, Mr. President.
00:11:25.500 Mr. President.
00:11:26.120 Mr. President.
00:11:26.500 You are clear of criminal liability today.
00:11:28.880 Mr. President.
00:11:29.180 Mr. President.
00:11:29.280 Do you take responsibility for at least being careless with classified material?
00:11:33.020 I take responsibility for not having seen exactly what my staff was doing.
00:11:41.220 It goes in and points out.
00:11:42.940 Things that appeared in my garage, things that came out of my home, things that were moved,
00:11:46.560 were moved not by me, but my staff.
00:11:49.380 But my staff.
00:11:50.540 Mr. President.
00:11:51.340 Mr. President.
00:11:52.560 Mr. President.
00:11:53.320 Why did you share classified information with your personal client?
00:11:56.900 Mr. President.
00:11:57.380 Mr. President.
00:11:57.500 Mr. President.
00:11:57.940 Mr. President.
00:11:58.500 For months when you were asked about your age, you would respond with the words,
00:12:02.700 watch me.
00:12:03.700 Watch me.
00:12:04.700 Many American people have been watching and they have expressed concerns about your age.
00:12:08.700 That is your judgment.
00:12:09.700 That is your judgment.
00:12:11.700 That is not the judgment of the press.
00:12:13.700 They expressed concerns about your mental acuity.
00:12:15.700 They say that you are too old. 0.61
00:12:17.700 Mr. President.
00:12:18.700 In December, you told me that you believe there are many other Democrats who could defeat Donald
00:12:23.700 Trump.
00:12:24.700 So why does it have to be you now?
00:12:25.700 What is your answer to that question?
00:12:26.700 Because I'm the most qualified person in this country to be President of the United States
00:12:29.700 and finish the job I started.
00:12:30.700 Mr. President.
00:12:31.700 Do you believe that?
00:12:32.700 Do you believe that?
00:12:33.700 Do you believe that?
00:12:34.700 Mr. President.
00:12:35.700 Why are you using the names of world leaders?
00:12:38.700 Mr. President.
00:12:39.700 I did not share classified information.
00:12:41.700 I did not share it.
00:12:42.700 With your ghostwriter.
00:12:43.700 With my ghostwriter.
00:12:44.700 I did not.
00:12:45.700 Guarantee you did not.
00:12:46.700 What the—
00:12:47.700 Well, no.
00:12:48.700 He did not say that.
00:12:49.700 Okay.
00:12:50.700 He did not say that.
00:12:51.700 Well, let me answer your question.
00:12:54.700 The fact of the matter is what I didn't want repeated.
00:12:57.700 I didn't want him to not, and I didn't read it to him, was I had written a long memorandum
00:13:02.700 to President Obama why we should not be in this—in Afghanistan.
00:13:07.700 And I was of this multiple pages.
00:13:10.700 And so what I was referring to, I said classified.
00:13:12.700 I should have said it was—should be private because it was a contact between the President
00:13:17.700 and the Vice President as to what was going on.
00:13:20.700 That's what he's referring to.
00:13:21.700 It was not classified information in that document.
00:13:25.700 That was not classified.
00:13:36.700 When you look back at this incident, is there anything you would do differently now?
00:13:42.700 And do you think that a special prosecutor should have been appointed in the first place
00:13:46.700 in both of these cases?
00:13:48.700 First of all, what I would have done is overseen the transfer of the material that was in my office, in my offices.
00:13:59.780 I should have done that.
00:14:01.920 If I go back, I didn't have the responsibility to that.
00:14:04.840 My staff was supposed to do that, and they referenced that in the report.
00:14:08.980 And my staff did not do it in the way that, for example, I didn't know how half the boxes got in my garage
00:14:16.140 until I found out staff gathered them up, put them together, and took them to the garage of my home.
00:14:22.140 And all the stuff that was in my home was in filing cabinets that were either locked or able to be locked.
00:14:27.420 It was in my house.
00:14:28.880 It wasn't out in, like, in Mar-a-Lago in a public place where, and none of it was high classified.
00:14:34.940 It didn't have any of that red stuff on it, you know what I mean, around the corners?
00:14:38.360 None of that.
00:14:39.500 And so I wish I had paid more attention to how the documents were being moved and where.
00:14:45.260 I thought they were being moved to the archives.
00:14:47.880 I thought all of it was being moved.
00:14:49.520 That's what I thought.
00:14:50.780 Now, what was the last part of your question?
00:14:52.080 Whether a special counsel should have been appointed in this case and in the case of your rival, former President Trump.
00:14:57.520 I think a special counsel should have been appointed.
00:15:00.240 And the reason I think a special counsel should have been appointed is because I did not want to be in a position
00:15:05.580 that they looked at Trump and weren't going to look at me, just like they looked at the vice president.
00:15:11.080 And the fact is they made a firm conclusion.
00:15:13.360 I did not break the law.
00:15:15.680 Period.
00:15:16.380 Thank you all very, very much.
00:15:20.480 Senator, you hear the president there.
00:15:22.960 And he lied, by the way.
00:15:24.360 He lied.
00:15:24.920 He lied on tape, by the way, after he was out of the vice presidency.
00:15:29.560 He's saying to his autobiographer, quote, the classified documents are in the basement.
00:15:35.540 He knew this.
00:15:36.900 And then he's acting like he's telling the truth.
00:15:39.360 And there's those documents in his garage next to his Corvette that he completely didn't even talk about there.
00:15:44.820 Yeah, look, look, there is so much in that press conference that is revealing.
00:15:48.640 Number one, you're right.
00:15:49.440 The press has turned on him in his entire presidency.
00:15:53.080 Joe Biden has never had a press conference remotely like that.
00:15:56.280 They are suddenly asking the questions that millions of Americans have been asking since the day Biden became president and before that.
00:16:03.560 And to see the press turn on him is a big deal.
00:16:06.680 I promise you, after this press conference, the White House team was horrified.
00:16:12.020 They were terrified. 0.94
00:16:13.360 They were going, oh, crap, this has gone really, really badly. 0.96
00:16:17.400 And these questions are not going away. 0.63
00:16:20.520 And, you know, he stated there that the special counsel concluded he did not violate the law.
00:16:25.120 That is not remotely what the Biden Justice Department concluded.
00:16:29.420 Let me read you the beginning of the report, the executive summary.
00:16:32.500 It begins with, quote, we conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter.
00:16:38.340 We would reach the same conclusion even if Department of Justice policy did not foreclose criminal charges against a sitting president.
00:16:45.620 Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.
00:16:56.060 Now, note, he said in that interview, I did not disclose them.
00:16:58.960 Well, in the second paragraph of the report, it says our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.
00:17:16.300 These materials included, I'm still reading from the report, these materials included, one, marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and two, notebooks containing Mr. Biden's handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods.
00:17:38.520 By the way, sources and methods, what that means is this was sensitive enough that disclosing this could endanger the lives of covert operatives, that when you're disclosing sources and methods, it means you can reveal the identity of a spy or it means you can reveal that, say, we have somebody's phone tapped or the ability to engage in surveillance.
00:18:00.520 And so, if you're revealing sources and so, if you're revealing sources and methods, that's a big damn deal.
00:18:04.940 Let me finish reading.
00:18:06.660 FBI agents recovered these materials from the garage, offices, and basement den in Mr. Biden's Wilmington, Delaware home.
00:18:16.300 However, for the reasons summarized below, we conclude that the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
00:18:23.680 Prosecution of Mr. Biden is also unworded based on our consideration of the aggravating and mitigating factors set forth in the Department of Justice's principles of federal prosecution.
00:18:34.480 For these reasons, we decline prosecution of Mr. Biden.
00:18:38.500 Now, what are the reasons they say don't prosecute him?
00:18:41.220 That one of the key reasons they rely on front and center is they say he's too damn old and can't remember anything.
00:18:47.840 And so, therefore, you could not prosecute him.
00:18:51.760 But I'm going to read from just a couple of pages later.
00:18:54.380 This is, again, from the report.
00:18:57.260 Mr. Biden wrote his 2007 and 2017 memoirs with the help of a ghostwriter.
00:19:02.420 In a recorded conversation with his ghostwriter in February 2017, about a month after he left office,
00:19:10.220 Mr. Biden said, while referencing his 2009 Thanksgiving memo,
00:19:13.820 that he had, quote, just found all the classified stuff downstairs.
00:19:21.360 So.
00:19:24.240 He expressed an awareness that it was classified materials.
00:19:29.740 And by the way, they have this because they have the tape.
00:19:32.420 So he's literally on tape admitting it.
00:19:35.860 And.
00:19:38.040 It continues in the next paragraph.
00:19:39.900 Evidence supports the inference that when Mr. Biden said in 2017 that he had, quote,
00:19:44.420 just found all the classified stuff downstairs in Virginia,
00:19:47.020 he was referring to the same marked classified documents about Afghanistan
00:19:52.400 that FBI agents found in 2022 in his Delaware garage.
00:19:57.180 Now, notice they say marked classified documents.
00:19:59.720 He said, well, gosh, I didn't know it was classified.
00:20:01.800 If it's marked, it has it stamped right on it.
00:20:04.600 And but they go on to say, none, nonetheless, we do not believe this evidence is sufficient,
00:20:12.500 as jurors would likely found reasonable doubt for one of several reasons.
00:20:17.020 And they go on to say.
00:20:20.200 Several defenses are likely to create reasonable doubt.
00:20:23.260 For example, Mr.
00:20:24.380 Biden could have found the classified Afghanistan documents at his Virginia home in 2017
00:20:28.240 and then forgotten about them soon after.
00:20:30.820 So he's just so old and senile that he's like, oh, classified documents.
00:20:34.460 What?
00:20:34.780 What?
00:20:35.040 I'm sorry.
00:20:35.500 What was I talking about?
00:20:36.640 I mean, that's reason number one.
00:20:38.780 While they don't prosecute him.
00:20:41.360 They go on to say another viable defense.
00:20:46.820 Another viable defense is that Mr.
00:20:48.760 Biden might not have retained the classified Afghanistan documents in his Virginia home at all.
00:20:53.460 They might have been stored by mistake and without his knowledge.
00:20:56.020 But then they say, given Mr.
00:20:58.800 Biden's limited precision and recall during his interviews with his ghostwriter and with our office.
00:21:06.320 So notice the ghostwriters back in 2017 and with our offices this past year.
00:21:11.980 Jurors may hesitate to place too much evidentiary weight on a single eight word utterance to his ghostwriter about finding classified documents in Virginia.
00:21:21.500 In the absence of other, more direct evidence.
00:21:26.220 And they go on to say, we have also considered that at trial, Mr.
00:21:34.260 Biden would likely present himself to a jury as he did during our interview of him as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.
00:21:47.740 Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt.
00:21:59.500 It would be difficult to convince a jury that they could convict him, by then a former president well into his 80s, of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.
00:22:13.220 Now, stop and think. This is the Department of Justice saying you couldn't convince a jury he is capable of a mental state of willfulness.
00:22:23.940 That's a big damn deal.
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00:24:41.340 All right, I have like 15 different questions, and I want to go semi-rapid fire with you, Senator.
00:24:48.220 So when this first came out, and I read what you just read to the audience,
00:24:52.300 the first thing I thought was, yes, this is damning of the President of the United States of America,
00:24:58.080 but this also lays a massive pretense down that Joe Biden cannot be held accountable for any of his crimes he's committed,
00:25:09.540 any of the money that's come in from China, Russia, Ukraine,
00:25:13.600 any of the money laundering with the Biden crime family and all these LLCs,
00:25:17.500 and it couldn't be held accountable for any of the suspicious activity reports
00:25:22.280 because they just gave the precedent that they couldn't hold him accountable for this.
00:25:26.020 So in a weird way, is this the Justice Department basically saying,
00:25:29.780 look, we know what's coming down the chute.
00:25:33.140 We know how bad it is.
00:25:34.900 We know what's going to happen with impeachment.
00:25:37.480 We know what's happening with the Republican investigations.
00:25:40.320 So we're going to give him an out right now to spare him.
00:25:44.840 Is that a real possibility?
00:25:47.380 Listen, this is a basis.
00:25:48.860 If someone's not competent to stand trial,
00:25:50.920 this is a basis that can keep him, prevent him from liability for any criminal offense.
00:25:57.920 That is absolutely a basis that's not limited to classified documents.
00:26:02.340 And to be fair, they didn't find he is,
00:26:06.980 the standard of being incompetent to stand trial is an exceptionally high standard.
00:26:11.920 What they said is he's so old and senile that you couldn't convince a juror that he was capable of acting willfully,
00:26:20.180 that you couldn't prove that he had the mens rea, the intent to commit a crime.
00:26:25.860 Well, if that's true, that's as true about documents as it is about anything else.
00:26:30.860 But if that is true, he shouldn't be in the Oval Office with his finger on the button.
00:26:35.560 Number two, this concerned me even more.
00:26:39.320 Biden's lawyers apparently wrote to the special prosecutor, Herr,
00:26:43.400 asking that he revise descriptions of the president's memory,
00:26:48.120 notable given voter concerns about his mental capacity.
00:26:52.980 Now, when I read that, I thought, okay, this is a full-blown cover-up
00:26:58.220 on a level that we've never seen from the White House, including Watergate,
00:27:02.700 by a president's staff, by the president's lawyers,
00:27:07.760 saying to the special counsel,
00:27:09.600 you've got to take out all the bad stuff here because he's running for re-election.
00:27:13.300 How the hell is that not a massive story of cover-up on its own?
00:27:17.040 Yeah, look, this is damage control, and it's bad damage control,
00:27:20.580 and it's out in the open, and they got caught.
00:27:23.220 And it shows these guys are terrified.
00:27:26.440 They understand that if Joe Biden is the Democrat nominee in November,
00:27:31.760 there are going to be two things that you're going to see on TV ads all over America.
00:27:36.700 Number one, and we talked about this on a podcast last week,
00:27:40.080 the image of illegal aliens walking out of jail in New York City
00:27:44.200 after having beaten up two New York police officers,
00:27:47.940 being released with no bail,
00:27:49.560 and then flipping the bird with both hands at the American people.
00:27:52.900 That image, if Republicans are even marginally competent,
00:27:57.700 will be played to the American people millions of times.
00:28:01.120 And secondly, the quote that he is a sympathetic elderly man with an exceptionally poor memory.
00:28:08.420 That, from the Biden Department of Justice,
00:28:11.100 that will be quoted over and over again,
00:28:13.440 that he could not remember when he was vice president.
00:28:16.440 That is an enormous problem.
00:28:19.240 And so his lawyers are desperately trying to engage in damage control,
00:28:23.460 saying, please don't say to the American people what is obvious for anyone who's watching to see.
00:28:30.200 Let's talk about the politics now of this,
00:28:32.280 because you and I witnessed it for the first time in history.
00:28:35.340 We played it for everybody listening.
00:28:37.040 The White House press corps turning on him.
00:28:41.740 This is something he's never experienced.
00:28:43.820 In fact, I want to play for you just an example of how quick CNN turned on him.
00:28:48.700 You would have thought they were talking about Donald Trump,
00:28:51.000 except they were talking about Joe Biden.
00:28:52.860 Take a listen to this from CNN.
00:28:55.260 Ultimately, what Robert Hur says in this report is,
00:28:58.420 essentially, the technical elements of a crime,
00:29:01.400 it appears Robert Hur is saying, were met.
00:29:04.080 But what he ends up doing is looking at the soft factors.
00:29:07.560 And you're allowed to do that.
00:29:08.320 You have to do that as a prosecutor.
00:29:09.660 And he takes into consideration things like what he says,
00:29:13.340 and maybe this is overstated, maybe not.
00:29:14.940 I'll leave that to the political folks. 0.51
00:29:15.960 But he says, essentially, Joe Biden would have created a sympathetic picture in front of a jury.
00:29:20.540 He had memory issues.
00:29:21.600 He had age issues.
00:29:23.060 And that goes into, was he able to form the mental intent here?
00:29:27.860 That's CNN.
00:29:28.980 And they weren't done there.
00:29:30.660 They also then went on to say that Joe Biden was, in essence, a liar at his press conference.
00:29:36.500 Here's this.
00:29:37.140 That is what blew my mind about Joe Biden's statement.
00:29:42.580 Except two major things he just outright contradicts or is contradicted by, however you look at this, this report.
00:29:49.740 There are two things he said that are completely the opposite of what Robert Hur found.
00:29:53.460 And who do you believe is up to, I guess, the individual consumer?
00:29:57.300 First, Joe Biden says, I did not act willfully.
00:29:59.980 Willfully just means voluntarily, intentionally.
00:30:02.200 Well, the second sentence of this whole summary says, President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials.
00:30:08.320 The facts in here show it was willful.
00:30:10.280 He knew.
00:30:10.860 He talked about it.
00:30:11.800 And the second thing he says is, I did not disclose classified documents to my ghostwriter.
00:30:16.820 Page three says that he did that.
00:30:18.840 It says, Mr. Biden shared information, including some classified information from those notebooks.
00:30:23.240 Senator, I watched that on CNN and I said, holy crap, they're turning on him.
00:30:31.900 And this is the end of Joe Biden's presidency as we know it. 0.94
00:30:35.880 They're trying to offload him in real time because of this report saying, here it is.
00:30:41.240 Let's take him out.
00:30:42.780 Yeah, look, this is a massive problem and it's not a problem that goes away in a day or two or a week or a month.
00:30:48.960 This is a problem that continues every day.
00:30:51.580 Joe Biden remains in the presidency.
00:30:54.280 I'll also point out something else, which is this report implicitly exonerates Donald Trump, which is an enormous problem for Biden as well.
00:31:07.060 Because, look, one of their big marquee cases against Trump.
00:31:10.760 Now, they're prosecuting him for damn near everything, including late library books.
00:31:14.260 But but one of their marquee cases is that Trump possessed classified documents in Mar-a-Laga.
00:31:19.440 And let me read again from the report.
00:31:22.700 This is what they say about Biden.
00:31:24.400 Quote, contemporary evidence suggests that when Mr. Biden left office in 2017, he believed he was allowed to keep the notebooks in his home.
00:31:32.440 In a recorded conversation with his ghostwriter in April 2017, Mr. Biden explained that despite his staff's views to the contrary, he did not think he was required to turn in his note cards to the National Archives where they were stored in a skiff.
00:31:45.660 And he had not wanted to do so at trial, he would argue plausibly that he thought the same thing about his notebooks.
00:31:54.000 If this is what Mr. Biden thought, we believe he was mistaken about what the law permits.
00:31:59.140 But this view finds some support in historical practice.
00:32:04.360 The clearest example is President Reagan, who left the White House in 1989 with eight years worth of handwritten diaries, which he appears to have kept at his California home, even though they contain top secret information.
00:32:17.160 During criminal litigation involving a former Reagan administration official in 1989 and 90, the Department of Justice stated in public court filings that the, quote, currently classified diaries were Mr. Reagan's, quote, personal records.
00:32:33.040 Yet we know of no steps, yet we know of no steps, the Department or other agencies took to investigate Mr. Reagan for handling, mishandling classified information or to retrieve or secure his diaries.
00:32:44.040 Most jurors would likely find evidence of this precedent and Mr. Biden's claimed reliance on it, which we expect would be admitted at trial to be compelling evidence that Mr. Biden did not act willfully.
00:32:59.760 As with the marked classified documents, because the evidence is not sufficient to convict Mr. Biden for willfully retaining the notebooks, we decline prosecution.
00:33:12.900 Now, that entire passage, you could write word for word and simply replace the word Biden with Trump, and it would be a major defense for Trump.
00:33:26.280 And this incoherence, the Department of Justice is going to have a nightmare because I promise you Trump's defense lawyers are going to quote that back at them and say, you know what?
00:33:37.860 The Department of Justice was right.
00:33:39.900 And if they were right about Biden, by the way, on this podcast, we walk through how the historical precedent was president after president after president had kept documents, including President Reagan, including President Obama, including President Clinton.
00:33:54.200 We walk through the history.
00:33:55.640 That's what the Department of Justice just concluded as their reason not to prosecute Biden.
00:34:01.660 And the obvious screaming question is, well, then why do you go after the opposing party other than because you are politically trying to stop the voters from voting for the other guy?
00:34:14.280 Let me just say this.
00:34:15.620 You look at the headlines right now.
00:34:17.420 It's pretty clear that the world is going crazy.
00:34:20.740 It's up in flames.
00:34:22.220 Bidenomics is a complete and total disaster.
00:34:24.200 And I try to make sure that every day when I wake up, that doesn't ruin my day.
00:34:28.740 Now, most of you know, I do a radio show every morning at 7 a.m.
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00:35:44.600 You go back to politics of this for a second.
00:35:47.540 And I can only imagine how stressed out White House staff is tonight.
00:35:52.660 I'm sure you agree with me.
00:35:54.260 It's 1 o'clock in the morning right now as you and I are still talking.
00:35:56.380 Yeah, they're all awake.
00:35:57.400 Nobody is asleep right now.
00:35:58.400 They're all awake.
00:35:59.260 Yeah, and they're probably at the White House still.
00:36:01.700 They lost Democrats today and they lost the media today.
00:36:06.880 And now it's got to feel like you're either inside the inner circle of Team Biden to prop him up and protect him.
00:36:13.920 And now the Democrats seem to be circling the wagon.
00:36:17.260 In your opinion, is this the beginning of the end of the Biden presidency?
00:36:22.740 Do you think he actually makes it to Election Day?
00:36:26.280 Because he's going to dig in.
00:36:27.460 That was clear from the press conference tonight.
00:36:29.200 Right. But it looks like and this could change.
00:36:31.840 But as of 1 a.m. right now, it looks like Democrats are saying it's official.
00:36:35.780 We are not going to support Joe Biden in this presidential run any longer.
00:36:40.600 We got to figure out how to offload him.
00:36:43.140 Look, I think the odds remain very low that he steps down before the end of his term.
00:36:48.620 I think as long as he is able to to stand vertically and not fall over, he is going to finish out this year.
00:36:56.080 That being said, as I said at the beginning of this pod, I think the odds that the Democrats push him aside and replace it with with Michelle Obama about 65 to 35 or put it another way.
00:37:09.060 It's about two to one now.
00:37:11.240 More likely than not that that that the Democrats decide this guy cannot be our nominee in November.
00:37:19.960 One other question I do want to ask you, does this change the way that Republicans investigate Joe Biden, knowing that the DOJ is now basically said you can't charge this guy with anything or we're not going to charge this guy with anything.
00:37:34.460 If they wouldn't do it now, why would they change that logic moving forward?
00:37:38.420 How does that change the way that James Comer and Jim Jordan are doing their investigations?
00:37:42.340 And should it change the way they're doing their investigations at all?
00:37:46.480 It shouldn't.
00:37:47.440 And I don't think it will.
00:37:48.500 And as we've discussed at great length on this podcast, the evidence of Joe Biden's corruption, of his deliberately selling favors from the vice president of the United States to foreign oligarchs, to Russian oligarchs, Ukrainian oligarchs, Chinese communists for millions and millions of dollars.
00:38:07.360 That evidence is very significant, and it is repeated evidence not only of doing so, but doing so willfully, doing so deliberately, and then aggressively covering it up and lying about it.
00:38:20.520 And I think we will see the House continue to lay out that evidence and to lay it out at great length.
00:38:25.580 And I would point out, number one, an immediate step for that potentially is impeaching Joe Biden, and the Department of Justice doesn't get a vote on whether or not to impeach Joe Biden.
00:38:37.840 But number two, whether or not Biden gets prosecuted for bribery is ultimately not going to be a question decided by this Department of Justice.
00:38:50.080 The chances that Merrick Garland brings charges are 0.00%.
00:38:54.300 He is acting, and he has acted his entire tenure like a political operative who works for the DNC.
00:39:02.180 So Merrick Garland's not going to do it.
00:39:04.220 And indeed, there is considerable evidence, underscored by two IRS whistleblowers who are career employees and Democrats, that Merrick Garland actively lied to Congress under oath, committed felonies, and obstructed justice.
00:39:18.880 So with or without this report, this DOJ was never going to prosecute Joe Biden.
00:39:24.760 That being said, if the House continues to lay out the evidence and we have a Department of Justice that is not controlled by Joe Biden, if there's a Trump Department of Justice and there is real evidence of bribery and corruption of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and the extended Biden family, I think the possibility of prosecution is real and significant.
00:39:47.800 One other question, and this is something that I think so many Americans want to know.
00:39:53.120 When you see this report that just came out and you see the cognitive decline and what they're stating in this report, you've got to ask this question, who is running this country right now?
00:40:03.640 Because if it is as bad as the special prosecutor is saying it is, behind closed doors, and we know how this media has propped him up and protected him, and we know how the White House has limited his schedule.
00:40:15.240 He sleeps in the morning.
00:40:16.360 He works usually between, I think they said, what, noon and four.
00:40:19.380 He's not doing big events.
00:40:21.300 He's getting the name of leaders wrong now.
00:40:23.460 And when they're, who's alive and who's dead now on a regular basis.
00:40:26.720 It's happened three times in the last three days.
00:40:29.240 Who is running the country, Senator?
00:40:31.340 And does that concern you as well?
00:40:34.440 So I can tell you I get asked that question regularly.
00:40:37.860 I got asked that question tonight.
00:40:39.640 Every week someone asks me who's running the White House, who's running the government.
00:40:44.080 The honest answer, and this is really scary, I don't know.
00:40:48.320 I genuinely don't know.
00:40:49.900 I have a theory.
00:40:50.620 I think it is Barack Obama.
00:40:52.660 But I can't prove that.
00:40:53.800 I don't know that to be a fact.
00:40:55.180 It's just that there are various data points, including the fact that Obama remained in D.C.,
00:41:01.740 something no president in modern times has done.
00:41:04.180 He's regularly in D.C.
00:41:05.500 He's regularly holding court.
00:41:06.800 He's meeting with Democrats.
00:41:08.560 He's meeting with members of the administration at his house.
00:41:11.780 And so I think it is likely Obama, but I can't prove that.
00:41:14.920 I just know it's not Joe Biden.
00:41:16.640 So it is some combination of Obama and other senior White House officials and people like
00:41:22.660 Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and AOC.
00:41:25.180 But the candid answer is, I have no idea.
00:41:28.560 One of two things is for sure.
00:41:30.140 Either the media is going to calm down the next couple of days or they're going to keep
00:41:33.660 going after him.
00:41:34.880 And that can change an awful lot if he does continue to lose the media.
00:41:38.500 We're going to keep covering it here.
00:41:40.420 Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
00:41:43.520 Make sure you hit that follow, subscribe or auto download button wherever you're listening.
00:41:47.840 I will keep you updated on my podcast, the Ben Ferguson podcast in those in-between days
00:41:52.380 as so much news is breaking right now.
00:41:54.620 So make sure you download my podcast as well, the Ben Ferguson podcast.
00:41:58.000 And the senator and I will see you back here on Saturday for the weekend review.
00:42:02.700 Plus next week on Monday.
00:42:04.740 Have a great night.
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00:42:09.020 Guaranteed human.