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- [00:00]
Mike Pesca
The Gist is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. Hi, it's Mike with a major announcement. It is not about the Gist. It is about something called the Gist List. So let me tell you, every day I construct the show by reading and listening and imbibing a tremendous amount of information. A lot of it doesn't make it onto the show, of course. So what do we do with that? What do we do with the effluvia, the jetsam, the sods, but also the odds. Enter the Gist List. Every day on Substack, I will be compiling the most interesting, important, maybe unfairly ignored stories that I look at and say, there's something there. You know, we must nurture that which is interesting in this world. Some of these stories do end up as segments. They all start off as ideas. We need ideas. The Gist list is designed to interest you, definitely. Not to waste your time to make you smarter. To see where I'm heading every day on the gist, so head over to Mike Pesca dot substack dotcom today and every day to sign up for the Gist list. It's Monday, May 19, 2025, from Peach Fish Productions. It's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. Now, there are some things that the Trump administration sincerely believes in, even if you don't. Too many immigrants in America. The administration believes that. Which ones? How to get them out up for debate. Not by them, but, you know, you could tell. It's a sincere belief. Doesn't mean it's a good moral or practical belief. It's a sincere belief. These judges are a real pain in the ass. The Trump administration believes that. I would say it's good. They're a pain in the ass. They would say it's bad. But it's a sincere belief. But then there is the category of thing that the administration, the cabinet, the electeds align with Trump. Of course they don't believe. It's just some bullshit. You got to say, it doesn't really bother all these people to have to say it. I think they kind of like it. They don't really think of it as lying. They think of it as a game that's necessary to play. Few examples prominent in the news lately. The tax cuts will pay for themselves. No they won't. Of course they won't. They know it, they never do. But they got to say it. Some probably mean something. Maybe in the neighborhood of close to that like on net the tax cuts will be more beneficial to the economy than not cut taxes. But of course they're not really going to pay for themselves. Here's another thing that's just some bullshit to say. Just because you got to say it. Tariffs are an attacks on consumers. Right. In fact, Trump's going way further than that all the time and saying tariffs are an attacks on the United States, they're attacks on other countries. And Carolyn Levitt and Trump's economic team, they all say oh yeah, yeah, tax on other countries. But they know they're not. It's just some bullshit you have to say. And then there's the plane. Yeah, the plane. Man, do they have to say a lot of bullshit on the plane. Here was Jake Tapper talking to Secretary of Treasury Scott Besant on State of the Union Sunday.
- [03:21]
Katherine Stewart
Well, I don't know Jake.
- [03:23]
Mike Pesca
The French gave us the Statue of Liberty. The British gave us a Resolute desk. I'm not sure they asked for anything in advance. And the more important airplane deal was there's 100 billion of orders from Qatari Airlines to Boeing. Kelly Ortberg, the CEO of Boeing was.
- [03:38]
Katherine Stewart
There with, with us in the Middle East. This is the biggest order in the.
- [03:43]
Mike Pesca
Country'S in the company's history. So you know, I think that that plain deal is much more important than this other one. Well, I will just say about the Statue of Liberty, I mean that was authorized by Congress and it's, it belongs to the American people. It doesn't belong to whoever was president at the time.
- [03:58]
Katherine Stewart
Well, I think that this plane would.
- [03:59]
Mike Pesca
Be a gift to the American government. Good point from Tapper. Authorized by Congress. Another point would be that the Statue of Liberty costs $250,000. Let's adjust for inflation, that's 8 million. The plane cost 400 million. A bad point by Besant. No, it is not a gift to the American government. Trump gets to keep it. But doesn't matter who has the good points and who has the bad points. It does not. It's just some bullshit to say in between the time the question is asked and the time the comes. Gotta say something. Soon you'll be on to the next thing. But in the time in between, gotta say some bullshit. On the show today, the new book about Joe Biden's mental decline and the so called cover up. I will light upon one figure who is dismissed by many, though not by me, as offering valuable insight into the president's actual mindset during this period and what became of that figure. But first, Katherine Stewart is a chronicler of the influence of Christian nationalism on the conservative movement and the Republican Party. Her new book is Money Lies in God Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy. Katherine Stewart, up next. You know there's a lot of stress out there and sometimes that could have an impact on your performance. You don't like to talk about it, you don't like to think about it, and then it becomes a spiral getting in the way of your performance. If ED is getting you down, you know the Ed that I speak of, Hims will help you get your confidence and some other things back up. You could be ready when the mood strikes. Feeling a little stalled in the bedroom. Through hims you could get some gas back in the tank. And I'm not necessarily even talking about fossil burning fuels. I'm talking about, yes, your love engine. HIMSS is changing men's health care by providing you with access to affordable sexual health treatments from the comfort of your couch. HIMSS provides access to a range of doctor trusted ED treatments like chewable tablets. Perhaps you've heard of Viagra and Cialis and you're going to save 95% on these name brand medicines. There's an intake form. A medical provider will determine if it's the right treatment option, then they'll send it to you. No insurance. One low price covers everything. Start your free online Visit today@hisss.com thegist that's H I M S.com thegist for your personalized ED treatment options. Hims.com the gist the featured products include compounded products which are not approved nor verified for safety, effectiveness or quality by the fda. Prescription required. See website for details, restrictions and important safety information. Prices vary based on product and subscription plan. So I really should start wearing clothes other than True Work, but I don't really see why other than social convention, I mean is the argument, well what about fashion? True Work has me covered. Literally. The stuff looks great. If the issue is performance, there is no issue. True Work is hell bent on creating the most technical high performance workwear in the world. Started in the Colorado mountains where a trade worker knew there has to be something better than this. I mean they haven't really updated denim and canvas in 200 years. So then True Work started engineering for comfort, for protection, for efficiency. They weigh very little but work very hard. Super soft, stretchy sweat wicking soft shell work pants wind and waterproof shells. Intelligently placed insulation for streamlined warmth. This stuff looks good. I get a lot of compliments. There are very cool colors involved too. Check out the 50,000 5 star reviews upgrade to True Work for a major change in the way you work. True Work helps you be your best when your best matters. I'm now going to tell you how to get a great discount on True Work, but please listen to the spelling. Check out the full lineup and get 15% off your first order@truewerk.com the gist that's 15% off at t r u e w e-r k.com the gist Katherine Stewart is the author of Money, Lies and God, and I would say not in that order, but certainly in something close to that order. She chronicles the interactions and the interplay between powerful forces that have aligned to not just propel Donald Trump to power, but dig the grave of democracy, a phrase that shows up in her book. Welcome back to the Gist, Catherine.
- [08:56]
Katherine Stewart
It's great to be here. Thanks so much for having me.
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Mike Pesca
So you lay out a taxonomy of sorts. Here are the people in the party who you write about, and understanding how they work and work together will help you understand what's driving Trumpism and forces that maybe he thinks he has under his control. The funders, the thinkers, the sergeants, the infantry, and the power players. Some of these the infantry. These were the people who stormed the Capitol on January6. The sergeants are the people who commanded them to do so. Maybe some proud boys, some toughs. But let's go further up the chain. The funders are the rich people, and I want to talk about them. But who are the thinkers? I'm very interested in who's giving the intellectual fuel to this movement, such as it is.
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Katherine Stewart
Yeah, thank you so much for the question. When I shine a really bright spotlight on a group of intellectuals that I call the Thinkers, many of them are affiliated with a movement called the New Right. Technically, I would say the intellectuals on the New Right aren't quite what you'd call Christian nationalists. Some are. Some self identify as Christian nationalists like Russell Vogt, but others are fairly atheistic. Some seem quite nihilistic and draw inspiration from political theorists associated with the Nazis. I kid you not. They seem more driven in some ways by campus politics, resentments against their fellow intellectuals or or political conflicts than anything else. For them, it's really about power, and they're always criticizing elites and liberal elites or woke elites, but they're really aiming to become a new elite, and they've really played a crucial role in bringing the funders together with the foot soldiers, I would say the rank and file of the Christian nationalist movement. I also call some of them funder whispers because they meet with a lot of these very deep pocketed funders and tell them how they should be spending their money.
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Mike Pesca
Yeah. So how intellectual are these intellectuals? Be fair. Even if you hate their ideas, do you think they're smart or good at what they do? Even if you think what they do and you do is quite immoral, is.
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Katherine Stewart
I think some of them are very, very bright. A lot of them are affiliated with a think tanks like the Claremont Institute, which came together around a sort of political theorist, Henry Victor Jaffa. And for a long time it was always conservative, but for a long time it really sought to strengthen America's founding principles.
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Mike Pesca
Over the years, it's very pro immigration place, for instance.
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Katherine Stewart
Absolutely pro immigration. He supported immigration. He, you know, I've spoken with his son. I, you know, interview him for my book Money Lies in God. And he, he said his father has had become really disgusted by some of the people who were being elevated within the Claremont Institute. And lately it's become extraordinarily reactionary. It draws together a group of people whose ideas could not be more anti American. They've really kind of lost the plot in some ways. I think the first thing to know about this organization is that they have a very deep network that is very closely allied with Republican politics. A number of Claremont affiliated and New Right affiliated intellectuals have taken up these key roles within the Trump administration, the Trump 2.0. And we see the influence of the New Right in documents like Project 2025. So they're taking up power in Washington D.C. and I would say in. In terms of the most basic ideas, the most important one is what the Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt would call a state of emergency. So in their view, America is so broken, so useless and valueless in a way and certain to collapse thanks to the rise of equality, really, or a. What they call a woke elite right, that any intervention is justified. We need to break all of our laws and smash our institutions that get in the way of creating a new order. Some of them claim they want a more monarchical form of political order. Some of them say they long for a red Caesar. That's how they describe it. So they're really bent on destroying the values of pluralism and equality and justice that really represent the best of the American promise.
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Mike Pesca
So is it that. The. So is it that the funders who you do say, aren't terribly intellectual. The deep pocketed funders of not just Republican causes, but this particular strain of digging the grave of democracy Republican causes. Do they need the intellectuals to validate their instinct, which is some of what you just said. We're so far gone that we need essentially a revolution or a strongman. And so that's the role the thinkers play. Or are the funders Republicans or conservatives who in a past generation would be giving money to the, what we call the Republican establishment establishment, and maybe Liz Cheney for instance, and getting low taxes. But the thinker have curdled their opinions and shaped it so that now this money is being directed from much more radical causes. How do you think, you know, survey the cause and effect there, if you will.
- [14:44]
Katherine Stewart
I think the curdled word is actually really a good one. I mean, we have a significant number of wealthy people motivated by a desire to advance their own financial interests and protect their privileges. And, and they're typically informed by some kind of what they like, a far right economic or libertarian ideology. Right. I mean some of those folks are driven by more overt religious and cultural goals. I'm thinking about people like the Wilkes brothers, perhaps these fracking billionaires. But they also want deregulatory environment for their polluting businesses. They don't want any environmental regulations. But there are a lot of funders who are frankly just motivated by financial concerns. They're not just interested in increasing their wealth and having lower taxes, but also in justifying the massive concentrations of wealth that they've accumulated. Look, over the past decades we've seen a massive upward concentration of wealth at the very tippy top of the economic spectrum. Don't take my word for it. Just look at all the economic and sociological data. We're really in a new golden age. Here's the thing about these ultra wealthy funders, these billionaire funders, they don't just want policies that are going to sort of benefit them financially. They don't just want deregulation and tax privileges, et cetera. They also want justification for the massive concentrations of wealth that they've accumulated. I think a lot of them truly believe that they earned every penny that they have with their bare hands and at the same time that they've accumulated massive fortunes. Life is getting an awful lot harder for most American families, for people the bottom 90% of the economic ladder. But these wealthy ultra wealthy funders don't like to hear about that. So they're really, I would say, susceptible to any kind of ideology that sort of justifies those massive concentrations of wealth. I think it's hard to understand the bubbles that they live in. They're surrounded by people who tell them how wonderful that they are, but they can sort of hear over the cries of the wall, you know, the walls, their walled environments, the kind of criticisms of the little people as it were, saying, well maybe you should be paying the same taxes as a schoolteacher and maybe you should pay your people better. But they don't like that. It's sort of, it's almost like a narcissistic injury. And so they sort of will grasp at the kind of ideologies that tell them, you know, that those people need to be squashed and kept down. I think for some of the like tech, you know, the broligarchs who are funding become like new funders of this movement. It's a surprise to a lot of folks. They're not motivated by religious concerns on balance, but they see the religious nationalism piece of it as just the price of doing business. We, you know, get little people to vote on, you know, their religious identity or this sort of culture war stuff and that's going to keep them in line.
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Mike Pesca
Yeah, I think you're excellent on what the religious identity really is and what they're trying to say, but I just want another crack at this. Not that you didn't answer the question excellently, but I think about the DeVos family, Amway money and we know Betsy DeVos was former education secretary and you mentioned the Wilk brothers who are in fracking by the way. I generally support fracking. It is I believe a transition, A transition energy. Rebecca Mercer, Tim Dunn, the Koch brothers, extractive energy. Extractive industries. But they've been around decades and they've been rich for decades. And the Koch brothers have, you know, interesting criminal, sort of interesting ish. Unless you think it's all cynical criminal reform initiatives. What who radicalized who is my question. Why wouldn't the Koch brothers be. Be perfectly fine being the Koch brothers. One has died but keeping their money, keeping taxes low, thinking society's working out for us, maybe having their opinions, you know, we're all going to hell in a hand basket, that sort of thing. But what did they did the thinkers radicalize them? Or did their did a need, a market need give rise to the radicalism of the thinkers?
- [19:08]
Katherine Stewart
Well, there's a lot to unpack here. I mean I think that a lot of them, this movement entirely has fallen prey to what I would call anti woke derangement syndrome. And look, let me be clear. I don't think I count as especially woke for a variety of reasons. And I don't need to go into all of that right now.
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Mike Pesca
Well, before. Before we. Before we started, we were talking about your history as a journalist, and you said something like, I got yelled at a lot in newsrooms and it made you a good journalist. So that's probably not a woke thing to say say.
- [19:38]
Katherine Stewart
No, I mean, listen, I also am pretty protective of the rights and dignity that women have had to fight for for a really long time. I'm a true believer in Martin Luther King's statement that people should be judged not on the basis of their skin color, but on the contents of their character. I'm inclined to think that identity politics has gotten out of hand sometimes on the left, but especially on the embittered white right. And that said, I would say I'm much more anti. Anti woke at this point than I am anti woke. And it's partly because the anti woke movement has now become its own kind of wokery. I don't think we have time to mess around with battles that are often entered into for their symbolism and virtue signaling, as opposed to the actual harms and lives that are at stake. I mean, don't get me wrong, the relentless targeting of trans people, the sort of scapegoating is a grotesque injustice. It's hurting individual lives and people who deserve their rights. But let's not forget that its main purpose is scapegoating. It's a massive distraction. And the purpose of scapegoating is really to mobilize an authoritarian movement. I mean, we are facing a huge crisis right now. Our democracy is under direct attack from within. When you think about the Claremont folks, they talk about how democracy no longer works and they want a more monarchical form of government. A king. Right. We no longer now have a credible system of justice and law enforcement at the federal level. Our economy and livelihoods are under threat. Millions of people are likely to lose their Medicaid coverage and Social Security. We've alienated our most important allies, and needless trade wars are raising the cost of goods for ordinary Americans or allying with, I don't know, authoritarians around the world. People in other parts of the world are just scratching their heads. Tourism to America is plummeting. I mean, this is just a start. So please excuse me for saying that it really doesn't matter if people decide to use pronouns or not. I mean, but this issue and others like it, these little side issues that frankly don't matter to. They're not kitchen table issues that matter. To ordinary Americans, this is being cast as the crisis of our time. Listen, the way I do my research is I've always felt like you can't really know what's happening unless you're in the room where it's happening. So I spend a lot of my time at right wing conferences and far right strategy gatherings and, you know, at pastor gatherings and places like that to sort of hear the way these folks, the leaders of the movement, are messaging one another and the rank and file. Not just when they're, you know, speaking on CNN to the general public, but when they're in their own trusted spaces. And when I'm in those spaces, every single speaker will talk about, about the issue of transgender women playing on women's sports teams. Now, the head of the NCAA said there are 10, I think it's 10 trans identified athletes out of 400 or 500,000. So is this really the issue that we should be talking about? No, it's like the shiny laser pointer cat toy that they use to distract people so that they will vote for a more monarchical political system. You know, these folks dress themselves up in red, white and blue and they claim to revere the American flag, but they are engaged in an a project that is entirely at odds with America's, what our America's founders intended and American democracy.
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Mike Pesca
It's interesting when you get into some of the differences within this group. Well, first of all, there are people who you profile in the group who are so behind Trump in a cult, if you want to say. And these were the same one of the women, I forget the exact group, but you'll probably remember who spoke at a conference and is a leader of one of these Christian groups back when Trump was first running, could barely, per your description, say his name without a look of extreme disgust on her face. So that's one thing. A lot of these people were once disgusted with Trump, but because they're Christian and now they're not. So let's just stop there and say, you know, is that why they convinced themselves that they were wrong in the first place?
- [24:12]
Katherine Stewart
Yeah, I mean, it's partly two things. Partly transactional and partly because Trump is the perfect representative of perfect leader for an authoritarian system of governance. And I'd like to break those two things down. So the first is it's true in the beginning they not they weren't all on board. Right. I mean I could, you know, I went to. Remember now it used to be called Values Voter Summit. Now it's called Prevost Stand. It's an annual gathering organized by the Family Research Council. It's one of the leading policy groups of the religious right. And a number of speakers really couldn't even say his name, you know, but then who was it who got up? I think it was Manafort, Paul Manafort. You know who he is. He gets up and he talks about how great this guy is going to be. And Trump gets up there and he says, basically, I'm going to do for you and you're going to do for me. And they got behind him because he promised them unprecedented political access, judges that they wanted. He actually stood up there and said. He held up a list of judges like shiny new bonds. And he said, I'm going to pick from the Supreme Court, from this list. And all of these judges are pro life, right? And then. And that becomes sort of code for all the other stuff that they want too. Not just anti abortion policy, but a whole range of other policies. He established an evangelical advisory council, sort of showing that he was going to draw those leaders near him. And he gave them policies that privileged certain religious and political viewpoints and also access to public money. He promised them that and he is delivering.
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Mike Pesca
So, yeah. And Paul Manafort, what a paragon of values. You ever see the leaked communication between his, I think both daughters, maybe just children worrying that he was going to give their mom an STD because he was availing himself of the service of so many Plutarch funded hookers. That was. That's a. That's a values guy. So another interesting rift or potential rift, though they've all come together is between the Catholics and the Protestants within this movement. That was interesting to me. The Protestants kind of rally around charismatic figures. The Catholics don't as much. What else are some of the differences?
- [26:30]
Katherine Stewart
This is a movement that, you know, people often associate with white evangelicals. But the Catholic side of the story has been really overlooked. There are not that many differences now. There's a lot of collaboration. A lot of it is due to a document, sort of a development within the larger Christian nationalist movement that culminated in, I believe it was 2009 or 2011, a document called the Manhattan Declaration, signed by a number of very prominent Catholic and evangelical leaders. And they said, we're going to set aside our differences and come together in support of our common cultural interests, which included opposition to same sex marriage, opposition to abortion, and basically a redefinition of the idea of religious freedom that would open the floodgates for public funding to conservative religious organizations and also the ability of people with the correct Beliefs to discriminate against those they don't like. And if, listen, there's a lot of collaboration across these traditional divides. So one of the big funders of the movement, I'll just give you an example is Barry Seid. He's a Jewish Chicago billionaire. He's in his 80s, got no kids, he devoted to, I think it's one of the largest political donations in history. $1.6 billion to establish the Marble Freedom Trust. They can spend 230 plus million a year without touching the nut. Guess we put in charge of it. Leonard Leo. Leonard Leo is an ultra conservative Catholic sort of money man of the religious right who's played an extraordinary, extraordinarily important role in building up the far right.
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Mike Pesca
Legal ecosphere right running the Federalist Society, basically picking the Supreme Court judges. Yeah, right.
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Katherine Stewart
So he and other leaders sort of on the ultra conservative Catholic side are really collaborating across religious lines on this sort of common authoritarian project is side.
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Mike Pesca
Motivated by anti wokeness.
- [28:37]
Katherine Stewart
It's hard to know what side really believes because he doesn't speak directly. He has a sort of interlocutor who speaks for him. You know, you can kind of gather some clues by some of the, you know, the ways that he, he goes by a different name and you know, some of it seems to be drawn from a kind of a libertarian think of an earlier era, but it's really kind of hard to know exactly who.
- [29:03]
Mike Pesca
Goes by a different name.
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Katherine Stewart
Barry Seid sometimes has used a different name in some of his communications and things like that.
- [29:13]
Mike Pesca
Mysterious.
- [29:13]
Katherine Stewart
I get into the details in my book Money Lies in God.
- [29:17]
Mike Pesca
And we'll be back tomorrow with our guest Catherine Stewart. This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Not everyone is careful with your personal information, which might explain why there's a victim of of identity theft every five seconds in the U.S. fortunately, there's LifeLock. LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year by visiting lifelock.com podcast terms apply. And now the spiel. Joe Biden sadly has cancer. His form IS grade group 5, the highest risk category. But you should know that prostate cancer is a five year survival rate at 98%. And Joe Biden's going to get as good a care as you could get. And his form of cancer is hormone sensitive, meaning there could be a viable treatment pathway. That's all good. Joe Biden's health, physical and Mental, which is a form of physical, has been in the news for years. But it all came to a head, of course, in the summer of 24 when his horrible debate performance caused a cascade of events. I don't have to recount for you the that resulted in the election of Donald Trump. For many years before, there were intimations of his decline, but they were met with a fortress of defense, walled protections emanating outward from family, then a layer of advisers, then the executive branch, then the Democratic establishment, then members of the media running interference for Joe Biden. During the time before the debate, it was very hard to get visibility into Joe Biden's true state from a source whose fortunes weren't intricately tied to Joe Biden. Many people had a lot riding on Biden's continued candidacy, whether or not he was up for the job. But one person with such insight at the time was Special Counsel Robert Her. Her was, you'll recall, the special counsel appointed to look into Joe Biden's storage of classified materials. The storage was improper, illegal, you might say. Her didn't because in his assessment, it didn't warrant criminal charges because Biden, quote, a sympathetic, well meaning elderly man with a poor memory and that phrase was treated as fighting words, calumny, a lie by many elected Democrats and their media allies. The new book Original Sin, President Biden's decline, its cover up and his disastrous choice to run again is out tomorrow. I've read an advance copy. I'm interviewing the authors June 1st in Seattle. Robert her in the book comes across very well. He was doing his job. He came to the right conclusions, he explained why he came to those conclusions and he showed his work. It was, like I said, probably the best unvarnished view into Biden's actual capabilities. And think about what they said about her. Now, the audio of Joe Biden's interviews with her came out over the weekend and if anything, they were worse than the transcripts might have led you to believe. Words on a page can be twisted a little bit in the reader's own mind to sound like what the expectations of the speaker are, maybe what the hopes of the speaker are here. Now I will play the moment that truly shows Joe Biden confused about dates, events and chronology in a way that bears noting for a number of reasons. The audio is not great. We will boost it. It's uncomfortable to listen to for a few reasons. So here's the setup. The prosecutor has just asked about a period after Biden served as vice president. It was a couple of years after Barack Obama and he left office. Now in his first year as vice president, 2009, Beau Biden, Joe's son, deployed to Iraq was a very important event. Of course it was to the Vice President of the United States. And in Joe Biden's second to last year as Vice President, Beau Biden died. Of course it was devastating and as memorable an event as can be imagined. And of course it happened when Joe Biden was Vice President. He would have had to remember that, only he forgot that perhaps his faculties were really, really slipping. Here was Biden trying to nail down the time period right after he stopped being Vice President. Well, I don't know. This is what, 20, 17, 18, that area?
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Katherine Stewart
Yes sir.
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Mike Pesca
Remember, in this time frame my son is either been deployed or is dying. And so it was. And by the way, there were still a lot of people at the time when I got out of the Senate that were encouraging me to run in this period, except the President. This is Biden misremembering Bose deployment within nearly a decade, misremembering his death within several years. Later he was prompted and reminded that the year of Beau's death was 2015. He also had to be prompted that Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the year 2016. It is true at one point Biden does remember that Beau died on the date of May 30th. Now from that one remembrance he said, oh, May 30th, but not any of the others. The dates, which is actually what they were talking about in terms of document storage. MSNBC spun out several segments. Here is one titled Biden Memory Issues were a Lie, Probe, Transcripts and Special counsel Robert her testimony show. Here was then MSNBC host Joy Reid explaining to her audience that Hur was lying when he said Joe Biden couldn't remember.
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C
Now let's not forget that a major part of this hearing was Republicans hoping to keep alive Mr. Hers gratuitous description of Biden in his report as a sympathetic, well meaning elderly man with a poor memory and diminished faculty. While having nothing to do with the classified documents. Her made the claim in his report that during his five hour interview Biden was unable to remember key dates including when his son Beau died of cancer. Oh, and you better believe the right wing ran with that claim as further proof that Biden is too old to be Commander in Chief. Yeah, except we now have the transcript of the interview right here that shows it was a lie.
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Mike Pesca
A lie. Wow. They played a clip of Representative Eric Swalwell in the congressional hearing putting the word photographic on one of those poster boards. And as if to embarrass her, Swalwell was implying that her was saying that Biden had a photographic memory. Oh, no, that wasn't close to what her was saying. Even if he once used the word photographic. He was trying to get Biden back from meandering reveries about pictures that he had on display and photographs from Mongolia and photographs on a poster board and on and on msnbc, then commissioned Swalwell to write an op ed for their site in which he wrote Robert her, a former U.S. attorney who is appointed by Trump, repeatedly opined on President Biden's allegedly, quote, poor memory. Now that we have the actual transcript of this conversation with President Biden, we know her doesn't even believe the assessment he provided. No, incorrect. Her believed it because it was true. If anything, Swalwell doesn't believe himself. According to another book about the campaign fight by Jonathan Allen and Amy Parnes, they were both on the show. Swalwell, who, remember, ran against Biden for the Democratic nomination, appeared with him in a summer picnic in 2023 and, quote, became concerned about Biden's mental acuity. This was months before the hearing and the MSNBC op ed. In fact, quote, Allen and Parnes and Swalwell's office did not dispute this. Swalwell had to cue Biden with personal details to remind him, remind him of who Swalwell was. But no, months after that clearly troubling incident that maybe voters should have known about, Swalwell was unfairly attacking Robert her, misdescribing what Robert her said in a congressional hearing and a column for msnbc. This was a grade A propaganda effort and that's clear in retrospect. But I got to tell you, it was also clear at the time. Here was Joy Reid at that time.
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C
Congresswoman, I have to go back and focus in on the.
- [38:12]
Mike Pesca
The.
- [38:12]
C
What looks like a lie that President Biden could not remember. The thing he talks about all the time, which is the tragedy of his son's death. Talk about that just for a moment and how that felt in the room to have him really not want to admit that he made that up.
- [38:25]
Mike Pesca
The question was to Pennsylvania's Madeleine Dean. Here's her answer.
- [38:29]
Katherine Stewart
But we said initially it appeared to me gratuitous that he would throw in this information or his own reading of the President's memory. I'm not sure his expertise in that.
- [38:37]
C
Right.
- [38:37]
Katherine Stewart
And I found it particularly irksome and indecent that he would quiz the President on the death of his son, Beau Biden. From brain cancer. Are you kidding me? A veteran and a public servant.
- [38:49]
Mike Pesca
This too was a lie. Her did not raise it. Biden found himself circling around Beau Biden's death, though clearly not the year to quote Original Sin quote though her had not even remotely raised it. Biden was now on the topic of Beau's tragic death and he was off and running. Madeleine Dean is a public servant, one of several who are running interference on friendly cable networks to obfuscate facts that are extremely relevant to American voters. Dean makes one appearance in Original Sin. She is among several Pennsylvania elected officials in attendance at a Biden event where the then president was so frail and out of it that an important businessman and former adviser to Clinton, Goran Kerry, began immediately making phone calls to other Democratic officials in a panic. Joe Biden now has more important things to worry about than other people's opinions of his legacy, though that consideration clearly brought us to where we are today. If we ever want to have something close to a reckoning, we have to get past the defense mechanisms. Chief among them all the actual facts about Donald Trump, also lying, also propagandizing, also having numerous toadies, servile TV networks, all who run interference for him. It's true. It's true in spades. If you want me to acknowledge that it's 10 times as true as it ever was for Biden, sure, put that multiple on it. But you have to get past it if you care. We have to have some accountability towards those who lied to us and a game plan for the next time that rests on demands of truth seeking more than partisanship and gamesmanship. And that's it for today's show. Cory Wara produced the gist. Astrid Green is our social media coordinator. Michelle Peskas, CBSO of Peach Fish Productions. Ashley Khan is co CBSO of Peach Fish Productions. Leo Baum is our intern. Thanks for listening.