Cenk Uygur

Jon Stewart does a segment. This is not necessarily causal, but buzz is building, right? So then Jon Stewart does a segment, if you remember, and people got super pissed at him. Too old, can't win, and all that buzz is building. Meanwhile, unrelated to us, David Axelrod and James Carville, and I'm like, guys, figure it out. Who does Axelrod speak for? The top advisor for Barack Obama.

Who is James Carville the top advisor for? The Clintons. This is the Clintons and the Obamas sending their emissaries to say, we can read a poll. He's going to lose. Change direction. So when the debate happens, we laid the groundwork. If we hadn't laid the groundwork... Debate would have been the first time that Blue Maga would have thought, oh, maybe Biden can't win, right?

But since all of us said it, and strange bedfellows, I loathe Nancy Pelosi, but she was on our side. I got a lot of issues with Bill Maher. He was on our side, right? I got a lot of issues with Axelrod and Carville, and they were on our side. So the people who believed in objective reality... kind of independently made a plan, let's show people objective reality.

And we did and we drove him out and it made all the difference. So you think he stepped down voluntarily or was he forced out? Both. So again, it depends on what you mean. So was he forced out? Of course he was forced out. You think he just woke up and he's like, oh yeah, you know what? Screw my legacy. I don't want to be a two-term president. I'll just drop out for no reason.

No, we forced them out. Of course we did, right? And when I say we, I had a tiny, tiny, tiny role. The people who had the major roles, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and all those folks. But even they were not the main driving force. The number one driving force were the donors. What is the source of power of Bernie or Massey? The people, right? What is the source of power for Biden? The donors.

The donors made Biden. He is the donors candidate. And the donors, that's why he told the donors, nothing will fundamentally change. That is, like you can, if you say, Lex, No, Cenk, I think you're too extreme that Biden works for the donors 98%. I think he only works for them 80% or 55%. Fine, we could have that debate. But you can't argue that it isn't his source of power.

And you can't argue it anymore, even if you were going to argue it earlier, because once the donors said, we're not giving you any more money, he didn't have any options. He couldn't go on. So, but was he forced out at like knife point or something? No. So was it voluntary? Yeah. Ultimately, if Biden decided to stay in, there was nothing we could do about it.

And so he had to voluntarily make that decision, but he voluntarily made it because he had no choice left. Yeah. I wish.

Not only did I agree with you 100%. I reached one of his top advisors, one of the guys you see in the press all the time as in his inner circle. I never said that before because we were in the middle of it, and I'm never going to betray anyone's confidence, and I'll never say who it was. But he was gracious enough to meet with me as I was about to enter the primary.

And look, it's smart too, because get information, intelligence, et cetera. Is this guy going to be trouble or not trouble, right? But at least he took the meeting. And the case I made is exactly the one you just said, Lex. I said, if he drops, this is about 10 months ago. I said, if he drops out now, They built statues of him, right?

The Democrats, if you're a right-winger, you hate him, I get it. But the Democrats would have said he beat Trump and protected democracy in 2020. And he steps down graciously now to make sure we beat Trump again in 2024. And he lets go of power voluntarily. He's going to be a hero, an absolute hero. But if he doesn't,

You're going to force all of us to kick the living crap out of him and tell everybody he's an egomaniac, which he is. And he's doing this for two so that he could be, if you don't know Washington in that bubble, if you're a one-term president, you're a loser. If you're a two-term president, you have a legacy and you're historic. He's running for one reason, one reason only. My legacy.

I will be a two-term president. I will be considered historic. I'm like, brother, Now you're going to be considered a villain, the villain of the story. You're handing it right back to Trump. You're not going to win, and you know, look at the numbers. Any political professional knows you're not going to win. So you have hero or villain, and you get to choose.

But if you think you're going to be a hero and beat Trump, that is not a choice you have. That is not going to happen. And they didn't believe us. But by then, they did.

Yes and no. So I argued for an open convention. And so what, If Biden had stepped down when we were trying to get people into the primary, knock them out, then that would have been a perfect solution. Then all the governors could go in, Walz, Beshear, Whitmer, Kamala Harris goes in, obviously. They have a real primary. At that point, me and later Dean Phillips came in.

Me, Dean, and I mean, Mary Ann wouldn't drop out. Me and Dean would definitely drop out because our whole point was get other people in the race, make sure we win. So, okay, then you would have had a great primary.

It would have been the right way to do it, both morally, constitutionally, et cetera, but also as a matter of politics, because you would have gotten a lot of coverage for your young, exciting candidates, and you would have legitimized the idea that you're protecting democracy. Okay, so that didn't happen because of Biden. It is what it is.

So now when Biden drops out, at least do a vestige of democracy. Go to the commission and do what it's designed to do, which is pick a candidate. Ezra Klein made a great case for this in a New York Times podcast that he did. That made a huge difference and he was great for doing that. So I believe in an open convention, but I know Democrats, they love to anoint because they don't trust the people.

So they think the elites are geniuses. Don't worry, we'll pick the right candidate. Yeah. I remember when you picked Hillary Clinton, how'd that work out? Right. And I remember when you said Joe Biden was the right candidate in 2024, how'd that work out? Do not anoint. Right. Right. So, but in the end they didn't. So what happened was Biden does the first announcement.

He either forgot or on purpose didn't put Kamala Harris in there. So there's all this kumbaya now. Nah, they don't like each other. Okay. And Biden's been screwing her over the entire time she's been vice president. So he doesn't put her in the original statement. And I'm like, whoa, I do a live video in media. I'm like, Kamala Harris is not in the statement, right?