today. i'll see you back here next saturday at adm. eastern and smerconish up next robert hur warned us, i michael summer cornisha in philadelphia thursday night was not just another poor first debate performance by an incumbent president, reagan in 1984 or obama in 2012, they both rebounded from rust nor was it a kinda president ford who offered a single poor response about soviet domination of eastern europe or papa bush looking at his watch. >> in other words, this was not a one-off. instead, what ails joe biden cannot be fixed and eventually it comes for us all before the debate, i said that delivery would matter more than substance, meaning how things were said would matter more than what was said. after the debate, others confirmed my prognostication, including the washington post editorial page which wrote this debate may not be remembered for what was said, but rather for how it was said. the part of my prediction that was wrong was in thinking that trump and his enablers had so lowered the expectation bar for biden that he could easily exceeded he didn't trump littered the debate stage with falsehoods cnn counted 32 biden's nine on any other night that would be the takeaway but this time, all anyone will remember is biden's before adelman and rookie mistakes were made by the political veteran calling into question, not just his acuity but his debate preparation was he unaware that he be on camera even when not speaking or did they tell him so only to have him forget? in all of those closed sessions at camp david, do they roll any tape did they show him what he would look like on a split-screen? either it was a bad look that reinforced either way, it was a bad look that reinforce the concerns that have been noted in countless polls for the last year david wasserman of the cook political report tweeted this, this debate making abundantly clear that biden's insistence on running for another term when 66% of voters in our swing-state polls believe it's likely he won't be able to finish a second term. has gravely jeopardized democrats prospects to defeat trump it was the earliest debate in our recent history for a reason. it was team biden's idea to end run the commission on presidential debates why? because he needed a reset where national and battleground polls have consistently shown him trailing trump biden didn't want that narrative to cement over the summer, only to have people return in september when voting will immediately be underway gone are the days when labor day marks the start of the fall campaign, not in an age of mail-in early balloting seen this way, the debate, it was a bit of a hail mary by biden, and it was a battle fought according to biden's rules first, his insistence that there be no rfk jr. left to the commission framework and timetable, kennedy would arguably have fulfilled the requirements to get on the debate stage. and he's still might for september second, no audience. third, muted mics and to boot, to commercial breaks providing a respite so eager was trumped to get biden on a debate stage that he readily agreed to those terms. and in the end, that framework benefited trump more than biden trump's speech was untethered, as usual but his body was measured. it was not the candidate who learned over hillary nor the candidate who interrupted biden in 2020. biden at times was just lost who we have 1,000 trillionaires in america. i mean, billionaires in america. and what's happening. they're in a situation where they've fact pay eight 8.2% in taxes. if they just paid 24%, 25%, either one of those numbers they raise $500,000,000 billion dollars. i should say, making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what i've been able to do with the covid excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with look if we finally beat medicare. >> thank you, president biden watching president biden, i thought of special counsel robert hur, who determined that biden had classified information, nuit shared it but still did not recommend criminal charges why not? because her did not believe he could prove biden's requisite intent, and that's why he said biden would present himself to the jury as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory those revelations went to the likelihood of success if the case were ever to be tried and that's a proper framework for evaluating potential wrongdoing, notwithstanding that a sitting president cannot be indicted. well, you remember the president's supporters, they how old? they said it was gratuitous but now we've seen what her saw and so has new york times editorial board, they are calling on president biden to leave the race here's part of what they said, quote, as it stands, the president is engaged in a reckless gamble he understood that he needed to address long-standing public concerns about his mental acuity and that he needed to do so as soon as possible. the truth mr. biden needs to confront now is that he failed his own test the fact that the new york times editorial page has asked president biden not to run is huge. it's the modern equivalent of walter cronkite editorializing about vietnam, which led lbj to recognize that he had lost middle america there are. certain underpinnings to a democratic presidents viability, cronkite was one for president johnson, the new york times editorial page is one for biden. and the democratic establishment and based on the times logic, it's also a moment when senior democratic leaders, those in governor's mansions and in the congress need to quit their conspiracy of silence about their president their obligation to their country is greater than their discomfort in calling it as it is. here's what i said on x last night. there's no recovery for joe biden from the new york times editorial, i doubt he'll be the nominee. i say that with no glee. it's just the reality of the influence, the gray lady still holds over those biden needs the most. donald trump may have just won the battle and lost the war. and here's what i met with 51 days to go until the democratic convention. will joe biden relinquish the democratic nomination to a stronger candidate? beyond vice president kamala harris. the democrats have a deep bench gavin newsom, amy klobuchar, gretchen whitmer west more. josh shapiro, pete buttigieg polls say that america is largely disgusted with the current choice between these two. well, here's a chance for a fresher face to catch lightning in a bottle, a contested democratic national convention is nothing to fear. it would be a dynamic and captivating several days in american history, the person who came out of that process the nomination, would have enormous momentum and would be a far different candidate in terms of their evident abilities far in excess of the way we look at each of them today. and that includes vice president kamala harris if she were able to convince the delegates to support her with competition, it would only be because she was compelling and the country would get to see that, that she would win the nomination in the alternative, the president's sense of patriotism might give way to perceptions of selfishness the new york times, thomas friedman is said to be among the president's favorite columnists he said the debate made him weep and he wrote this, joe biden, a good man, a good precedent has no business running for reelection. the headline, he must bow out of the race joe biden's place in history is secure as the person who denied donald trump a consecutive second term. but that might come with a footnote if he's the person who enables a trump return to the white house i want to know what you think. go to my website right now. it's were kaddish.com answer this question. should the democratic nomination be determined by contested convention? some have been sounding the alarm on this long before the debate was even on the books earlier this month, the wall street journal's annie linskey co-authored a piece based on interviews with more than 45 people over several months entitled behind closed doors, biden show signs of slipping it doesn't get more straightforward than that. yesterday, she co-authored a follow-up. the world saw biden deteriorating democrats, ignored the warnings, white house reporter for the wall street journal, annie linskey joins me now and i'm going to put up on the screen the lead for your most recent can reporting. i'll read it aloud and then have you summarize the new story. you say, with regard to the presence overseas trip, officials said that biden's performance and focus can vary significantly between meetings and even within a meeting, two senior european officials cited a european union us summit in october in washington, at which biden struggled to follow the discussions, both said he stumbled over his talking points at several moments requiring secretary of state anthony blinken to intervene and point out the lines he should use summarize your most recent reporting. what do you have? >> yeah. thank you. it's great to be on. i appreciate it. and yeah, we have a piece on the front page of today's wall street journal that looked at some of biden's most frequent foreign trips. and its interactions with diplomats from around the world you've. been really interested in how biden important himself in these small closed doors meetings, largely because the white house has said to us repeatedly and send to the world repeatedly that look, if only you saw the joe biden, we see behind closed doors, he has sharp as attack. i think when he spokesperson even said that he has sharper than ever when behind closed doors and that really launched an effort by my news organization to try to find what are these moments behind closed doors and so let's recently some of my european colleagues were able to work their sources. this is effort that really got an arrest after the debate. this second piece of the story and they were able to talk to some other sources who've been with the president in some of these diplomatic meetings with world leaders and some of them some of the participants have walked away quite concerned so when you wrote on this subject with your colleagues on june 4 republicans were on the record, democrats were not. the white house then said, essentially this is a partisan hit job. what's the situation? are there democratic sources who feed you this information but don't want to be known or is it only coming from republicans? >> well, the story that we initially row relied mostly on republican sources, but the anecdotes that were in the story were supported in many cases by democrats on background luck, if you are a democrat in this party talking about the president's age is saying it's touching the third rail is sort of that wouldn't be as kind of a spot day compared to what you're going to get so there is absolutely no incentive, particularly before the debate for any democrat to say anything about the president's age. it's been a topic that is radioactive. so i think the expectation that a democrat is going to stand up to their party and explain what they're seeing behind closed doors in a candid way is we mean that's a bar that we were unable to cross. and that story, i wish we had. now, did we talk democrats? do we hear from democrats who said yes, this is what we see two, of course we did any do you think the debate changes that do you think the new york times editorial that i referenced in my opening commentary changes that and gives cover two democrats to now go on record telling you the things they've said privately i think so. >> i mean, i think there's i think there's a hesitation for democrats to be seen in this moment is piling on the president. i think there's the way people have described it as this is a very fluid period there's a tremendous amount of party loyalty i'll see you there is i feel that the democratic party is very much bound together by this fear of donald trump returning to power and there has been a reluctance to be candid about some of biden's drawbacks because of that. so i don't know. i don't know. i can't speculate they may, do. i do know that we've just heard from a lot of sources who said yes, that was right on and we're glad that you did it reporting and put it out there. >> any linskey from the wall street journal. thank you for being here thank you so what would happen if president biden were to drop out of the race? elaine kmart joins me now. she's founding director for the center for effective public management and senior fellow for governance studies at the brookings institution. this is her area of expertise, nice to see you again, what would happen at the convention if the president were to say, i'm no longer your candidate well, if it happened right at the convention, that would be really pretty chaotic if it happened some weeks before the convention, you would find other people who want to be the presidential nominee. >> the democratic party, calling for thow about proximately 4,000 delegates who've already been elected those delegates are absolutely biden supporters and but we don't know if biden voluntarily took himself out. we don't know where those people would be. there would be a scramble for their attention. if you could see canada today, it's going to state delegation meetings. you could see candidates getting on shows like yours trying to make an impression publicly, people would watch the polls. there'd be a lot of attention to these candidates and ultimately, they would have to convince somewhat somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 plus democratic delegates to vote for them on a roll call vote am i right? >> that president biden could not control those delegates currently pledged to him. he could make an endorsement if he chose, but he can't just say and here will be my successor no, of course not know. he he can't he doesn't control them in the legal sense. obviously, his view on on who should be a successor will be very important. and we'll probably carry a lot of weight with a lot of the delegates who are, who are dedicated to joe biden. i mean, i think the one thing we forget in this is that lots of people in the democratic party loved joe biden. they've known him for years. he's done things for them for years. they know he's a good man and he's been a good president so you're going to have a lot of attention to what joe biden thinks should he decide not to run as there are an impediment in getting on some state ballots at this juncture, has that ship already sailed if there wouldn't be a change in the democratic nominee, do you get on the wisconsin ballot? oh, sure. yeah. because if people don't, you're not on the ballot until the convention formally nominates you so it's the formal nomination that puts you on statewide ballot. so at this point, there's no problem and it's there's only a problem after the if somebody if nominee would drop out after there convention okay. >> so we've had this conversation before. you've got to look at it in different blocks of time. there's the scenario of now through the convention, there's a totally different scenario. if it's post convention through election day. and frankly, if it's after election day through the inauguration, that's a third scenario. >> that's right through three different scenarios. if for some reason the president, the nominee, dropped out after the convention than the democratic national committee would convene and select the nominee. same thing by the way, for the republican party and if the nominee dropped out after the election and before the electoral college mates, you still have electors who are democrats and electors who are republicans. they would get, they would decide the replacement for the nominee if the democratic candidate or the president elect drops out after the electoral college has met, then the constitution finally kicks in. and the vice president elect will be inaugurated. so it's three different scenarios, but up until election day, it really is in the hands of the political parties away and came mark that was excellent. we thank you thanks for having me what are your thoughts hit me up on social media. i am on twitter now, x usually rely on that during the course of the program, but i'm on all the platforms a little one-sided, aren't you, michael? it's unbelievable that these two are the best either party can come up with to lead the country over the next four years. i don't get the part that says a little one-sided. wayne mciver, the issue of the day, you might not like it, wayne is the president, the incumbent president's performance on thursday night? and i think that that editorial today from the new york times is a potential game changer, a wake-up call for the democratic establishment, providing them cover to break what his heretofore been. a conspiracy of silence to discuss the state of affairs and annie linskey from the wall street journal, just confirm for you to that. what gets said by democrats behind closed doors comports with what we saw on thursday night. and there's time to make a change and that's what the opening commentary and segment was all about. i want to know what you think. i have no idea how today's poll question is going to turn out. i just know it's a darn good one. should the democratic nomination be determined by a contested convention goes mercado each mercado.com, and cast your ballot up ahead. more than 51 million tuned into thursday's presidential debate. a cnn poll found that 60 d, 7% of debate watchers say the trump outperformed biden, with most saying they have no real confidence in biden's ability to lead the country. so how important? was this first debate? what do past debates and elections tell us pollster frank lunch, who's concluded, who has conducted presidential focus groups since 1990 six said, he's never witnessed one reaching a conclusion. this overwhelming. what does he mean? i'm about to ask him, make sure you're signing up for my free daily newsletter. it's great content and it includes exclusive political cartoons like this, drawn four for a spice. steve brain there's sanjay gupta reports the last alzheimer's patient, july cemetery on cia if you're living with hiv, imagine being good to go without daily hiv pills good to go unscripted, good to go on a whim with cabinet. >> there's no pausing for daily hiv pills for adults were undetected double kevin uva is the only complete long-acting hiv treatment you can get every other month. it's two injections from a healthcare provider, just six times a year don't receive kevin uva if you're allergic to its ingredients or if you're taking certain medicines which may interact with cabin nova serious side effects include allergic reactions, post injection reactions, liver problems, and depression. if you have a rash and other allergic reactions, symptoms, stock have a nova in gap medical help right away. tell your doctor if you have liver or kidney problems of mental health concerns and if you are pregnant or breastfeeding or considering pregnancy, some of the most common side effects include injection site reactions, fever, and tiredness. with cabin uga, you're good to go. ask your doctor about switching with consumer cellular is fast reliable coverage. >> it's easy to win races and good two months free when you buy any iphone like iphone 15 pro with titanium life with a fib can mean a lifetime of blood thinners. and if you're troubled by falls and bleeds wurie follows you everywhere over 400,000 people have left blood thinners behind with watchman watchmen is a safe, minimally invasive, onetime implant that reduces stroke risk and bleeding for life watchmen, it's one time for a lifetime this is the temper p-adic breeze mattress and it's designed to help you feel cool to know more sweating all night, no kicking off the covers or blasting the air conditioning because only th