Scott and Jessica break down President Biden’s aggressive cancer diagnosis, which comes just as a new book claims his team may have hidden signs of serious decline during the 2024 campaign. Meanwhile, Trump’s Middle East trip makes waves as his domestic agenda stalls. To appease hardline conservatives, Republicans push changes to the megabill—including stricter Medicaid work requirements, cuts to green energy tax credits, and the removal of Medicaid access for undocumented immigrants. Then, former federal prosecutor and Stay Tuned host Preet Bharara joins to unpack the growing legal and ethical crises surrounding the Trump administration. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov. Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Follow Raging Moderates, @RagingModeratesPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is President Biden's cancer diagnosis?
When people are like, oh, it's supposed to be so serious. I'm like, what is funnier than sex or like the weird stuff that goes on around it?
A hundred percent. And then the third thing, as I try and dig my way out of this hole, the third thing is kindness. Which is the most underrated.
Chapter 2: How does Biden's health impact the 2024 campaign?
It's the thing that men don't realize is actually very attractive is how you treat service people, your clear commitment to your parents, because women at some point know deep down that they might be vulnerable during gestation or raising kids and they want someone who's kind. Anyways, has nothing to do with anything we're talking about today.
Well, kind of. I mean, we're talking about humanity, and this is humanity.
There we go. All right, let's get into it. Those include stricter Medicaid work requirements, cutting Biden-era green energy tax credits, and removing Medicaid access for undocumented immigrants. But of course, Trump wasn't about to let the chaos back home steal the spotlight. During a business stop in the UAE, he pivoted back to one of his favorite topics, tariffs, and not just talk.
He announced his administration plans to skip negotiations entirely and slap new tariffs on dozens of countries, a move that could rattle global markets and strain relations with key U.S. allies in Europe and Asia. And if that were enough political whiplash, on Sunday it was announced that Joe Biden was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer.
The news comes just days before the release of a new book by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, which raises fresh questions about what the public didn't know and what insiders did know about Biden's physical condition during the 2024 campaign.
According to the reporting, Biden's health was deteriorating so rapidly that aides feared he might need a wheelchair if he won reelection, but they kept it quiet, taking every possible step to keep him upright until he eventually dropped out. Jess, let's start with Biden's tragic news for him and his family. What do you make of it all?
Well, it's incredibly sad to hear that he has cancer. It's something that touches all of our lives. I lost my dad to cancer, and reading that it's a very aggressive form that's already permeated the bones, that's terrible news all around. And I hope that he and his family are able to spend some time tuned out from what is to be a
savage week in politics because of the release of this book and the Robert Herr special counsel tapes that came out as well, and a lot of people are jumping on that bad wagon. So I hope that they can find some time for themselves, and I trust that they're getting great medical care. It also is opening up this Pandora's box even further about cover-ups and how it's possible that he...
has progressed so far without telling the public what's been going on. Was he sick while he was in office? Dr. Zeke Emanuel, one of the Emanuel brothers, was on Morning Joe Monday morning and said his expectation would be that he would have had this for 10 years. I didn't know a lot about prostate cancer, and I'm not going to pretend that I'm any sort of expert, but I didn't even know that you...
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Chapter 3: What are the proposed changes to the GOP's megabill?
You have to sort of almost shove all this goodwill and loyalty aside and do what's best for the shareholders. Right. You know, these are really uncomfortable conversations. Anyone who's had an aging parent, they're under the impression, and they're not bad people, that, no, I can continue to live on my own. And this is people much younger than President Biden.
And then when you have people around you enabling it, you can absolutely see how this happens and that it's not, I don't want to say it's not their fault, but you can understand how an individual believes with the right people around me, I can continue to do the best job and I beat them once, I'll beat them again. And that's why we need age limits on both sides.
There are 34-year-olds I know who are incredible, who would be, in my opinion, have the neurological, physical, emotional, and mental strength to be president. And yet, they're not eligible, though. We've decided their body of experience, their brain development, their judgment and reasoning, and their faculties are not up to the task of the highest office in the land.
Chapter 4: How does Trump's agenda affect the Republican Party?
But an 85-year-old at the end of his term is? I don't know anyone who's beat biology. Biology is undefeated. And the notion that we're just going to ignore it on the high end, we need age limits for the Supreme Court. And we need, okay, you cannot be in elected office beyond, I would pick 70, but okay, maybe 75. And here's the thing, it's also the kindest thing to do.
Because what I've seen at corporations is when they have mandatory retirement and they have mandatory tenure limits on the directors, you want to talk about people who have fucking nothing going on. But occasionally they get to show up to a board meeting and have a free dinner and think big thoughts.
And you got to tell these people whose companies kicked them out a long time ago, no, you can't be on this board any longer. That is such an uncomfortable conversation that nobody wants to have it. So what's great is you have boards that have Tenure limits. You can be on this board for no more than 8, 10 or 12 years.
Not only will it be best for the country, but I think the kindest thing to do is not make it a question or an issue. Once you hit 70 or 75, you go home a hero and you spend time with your grandkids and we're done. And I think that's the conversation we should be having instead of like... It was some sort of malicious cover-up. No, we're all covering for our old aging parents.
We're all trying to pretend and talk ourselves into believing that they're okay, that they're better than they are. And you see them at their best moments. So I hope this inspires a productive conversation where we say, okay, Britain has age limits on their Supreme Court justices here, as most countries or a lot of countries have them.
Let's have an age limit on the presidency, our senators, our Congress people, and our Supreme Court justices. It puts the country at risk when you have people this old with literally their finger on the button. Your thoughts?
Yeah, I agree with you. And I've had multiple conversations around this issue and people push about, oh, you're being ageist, etc. If we're talking about 75, I don't think that's that ageist. If I said something like, oh, you know, you can't even be 60, that would be ludicrous. But if you're talking about people where there is...
Biology, very clear about how your brain changes, how your body shuts down, that this is what we can expect at that stage in your life. Why would you want that person as the leader of the free world? Or why would you want that person as one of the nine most important legal minds in the country? I think that people will come around to those kinds of conversations.
The issue is, will the folks who are still filling those positions get out of the way? Because there are all of these older Democrats that are retiring, like Dick Durbin, right, who's, you know, passing the torch, Jeanne Shaheen, etc. And then you have someone who has the stamina and energy of a 30-year-old like Bernie Sanders, but in his 80s, who's not slowing down or stopping.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of age limits in politics?
Yeah. So I'm the original ageist. Bill Maher called me an ageist. And I said, yeah, and you know who else is ageist? Biology. I think my 14-year-old makes really bad decisions. And I think my dad, left to his own devices, would make even more bad decisions. And at some point we had to tell him he could no longer drive because he was going to kill someone.
Do you realize that people, I think it's people over the age of 75, are dramatically more dangerous behind the wheel than a brand new 16-year-old? We always talk about how dangerous new kids are and they drink.
Well, their reflexes, right, are just completely gone.
Yeah, they're really fucking old. My reflexes aren't what they used to be. I'm like, I can't get over the fact that how my reflexes are degrading. Anyways, in addition, the other benefit of having age limits is that we need to clear out more room for younger voices, right? I see this every day in higher education.
Chapter 6: How do tax cuts in the new bill affect Americans?
There are so many young, outstanding academics who can't get traction in their career and oftentimes end up leaving the profession because some 84-year-old who was the bomb and gapped one accounting in 1973 won't get the fuck out of the way. because of tenure and won't go home. And it creates more uncomfortable conversations. I mean, Goldman Sachs and McKinsey are great at this.
And that is once you literally hit 45, they start politely nudging you out of the firm. A, the firms are incredibly profitable, but they start creating basically retirement funds and you can access them once you retire.
They want you out because the only way they can continue to attract the type of human capital that continues to make their organizations perform at the highest level is it creates room for young people. And one of the nice things about DC is it does attract a ton of young, incredible talent at a staff level.
But there are too many great young people in the Senate and the House who are thinking about running who don't run because some fucking 85-year-old won't get out of the way, who just shouldn't be there.
But because they've been taking money from special interest groups forever, because the party will always support the incumbent because the incumbent does have the biggest chance of winning, we end up... with a cross between the walking dead and the golden girls deciding public policy. So I hope this inspires a more serious conversation, not about, oh, the Biden family, they did something wrong.
No, they didn't. They do what every family does. They were trying to protect their loved one, and they saw the best side of him. But we need to have an honest conversation around age limits, which won't happen.
We also have to have a serious conversation around the political strategy for navigating the fallout from this book and the continued conversations around the Biden era because it is not going away.
Oh, you think it's a big deal. So I think it'll come and go.
I work at Fox News. This ain't going anywhere. It will lead every newscast until there's some feedback that the viewers aren't into it anymore. And the viewers are not going to not be into stories about Joe Biden not knowing who George Clooney was, even if that's disputed by some people or that they were going to use a wheelchair or whatever else is to come. And I haven't read the book.
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Chapter 7: What is the real impact of SNAP cuts proposed in the bill?
The bottom 60% of taxpayers would get an average tax cut of $700 under the plan, but over $10 million would lose their health insurance. And I'm pretty sure that your health insurance is worth more than $700 in your pocket. And I guess in a bright spot, if you take them at your word, which is always difficult, this bill is dead on arrival in the Senate.
You know, Josh Hawley had a New York Times op-ed saying you can't cut Medicaid. Ron Johnson wants more cuts. That's my favorite. The people who are like, no, I can't be for this because it doesn't cut enough. But, you know, I'll take it. Susan Collins, Jerry Moran, all the rural hospitals are going to be gone. It's going to wipe out rural medical care in this country. And
Every once in a while, it's a good time to be a Democrat. And in this case, it is because you have all these Republicans whose feet are going to be held to the fire because they represent rural states. And they've got millions of constituents that are saying, I'm going to have nowhere to go. I won't have health care in the first place.
But then if I do get sick, I can't even get to a hospital to get the care that I need.
Yeah, and I think that's the correct framing. What I have seen is that it's a tax cut for the top 5%, and it's a tax hike for the lower 95%. And in addition, the thing that I harp on about is it's going to add what I've seen, about $4.5 or $5 trillion to the deficit. I've seen numbers that are much bigger. I'm taking the more conservative one. That's about $30,000 per household.
And keep in mind the deficits that we're racking up are not being used to fund education or fund technical development or make investments in infrastructure that could ultimately pay off for future generations. It's essentially to extend corporate tax cuts. and increased defense spending.
And they're trying to minimize some of that deficit reduction by cutting social services or, you know, as you said, Medicaid. I uploaded my W-2s from last year into three different LLMs and said, how does the proposed Trump tax bill going to affect me? And they came back with things. I'm going to get wealthier. And one even started off with good news.
So essentially, this is young people get to borrow money, four and a half trillion dollars, because the thing is, our credit is fine for probably 10, 20, maybe 30 years. People are crying that. Oh, yeah. Interest rates will go up. They already are. We just lost our AAA credit rating from, I think, was it Moody's?
Moody's, yeah.
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