Forbes staff writer Zach Everson joins "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss the first presidential debate and calls for President Joe Biden to step down from the race.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes breaking news. Joining me now is my Forbes
00:06colleague, staff writer, Zach Everson. Zach, thanks so much for joining me.
00:10Thanks for having me on, Brittany. Excited to chat about the debate.
00:14I think the debate is a very good place to start. First question is what happened? Many
00:20people, both sides of the aisle, have been calling President Biden's performance disastrous.
00:26Tell us about it.
00:28Yeah, the whole thing was awful. It was an awful debate. I mean, Donald Trump showed
00:34up and acted like Donald Trump and lied and changed the subject and did all the Donald
00:40Trump sort of things that you'd expect him to do, which is not exactly what you're looking
00:45for in a presidential candidate. But none of that was new. What was new, the big question
00:51was how would Joe Biden handle a debate? Now, remember, he did not have any primary debates.
00:57He went through relatively uncontested. There were some other candidates there. They did
01:01want to debate him. The Biden campaign said no. In hindsight, maybe it would have helped.
01:07It might have level set expectations because what we witnessed last night has been called
01:12devastating. That very well may be the case. Time will tell. But what we saw last night
01:19was a man in his 80s staying up at 9 p.m. trying to have convincing conversations for
01:2690 minutes. And he fell way short of what most Americans would want their president to be like.
01:31I was talking to a Democratic strategist earlier today, and she said it wasn't even so much
01:37Donald Trump won this debate. It was that Joe Biden lost and he lost pretty badly.
01:42He continuously trailed off. He lost his train of thought pretty frequently. He didn't fill
01:48in those gaps where the moderators a few times said, Mr. President, you have this many seconds
01:52left. Do you want to add anything? There have been a lot of calls today and last night for
01:57President Biden to step down. So first, could Biden be replaced as the nominee?
02:04Yes. Yes, that could certainly happen. You're right. His responses last night were
02:10trailed off, gibberish. And it reminded me a lot of the video of I think it was Miss South
02:16Carolina that went viral probably 15 years ago with an answer. And she did not move on to the
02:22beauty pageant. So yeah, the Democrats have some options. The best options for them would be if
02:29President Biden were to say, I'm not running. That does not seem likely to happen, though.
02:36I just spent a fair amount of time reporting on Biden when doing his net wealth, reading his
02:41biography. And that's not the story he tells himself. He views himself as somebody who's
02:48come back time and time again. And that's true to a certain extent. But, you know, he's also
02:52in his 80s now and he's not going to get less old like that. That's going to continue to happen.
02:59There's not really a way to bounce back from this. So, yeah, they certainly they could try to
03:04push him out, you know, a few gentle, gently coaxing him out the door. And there's also
03:09something they could do at the at the convention, whereas these delegates do have I think they have
03:15to vote in good conscience to support the person who won the primary that, you know, maybe their
03:21conscience says, let's go with somebody else. As you said, President Biden does really consider
03:27himself the comeback kid. And this story played out. I mean, not the debate, but the story of
03:33being the comeback kid played out in the twenty twenty election where everyone said during the
03:36primary, it's not President Biden's time at one point at that point. He was vice president, but
03:42he came in fifth in, I believe, Iowa. And then when it was the South Carolina's primary,
03:48things turned around for him. But he does he did sweep this primary season. He does have
03:52enough delegates to be voted as the official nominee in August at the DNC. So would he have
03:58to leave voluntarily? Now, these delegates could go ahead and move without him, but he's been the
04:05head of the party for such a long time. He got to pick a lot of these delegates. They are Biden
04:10loyalists. You know, I don't see enough just immediately jumping ship to give anybody else
04:14a majority on this. I think there you need to see some coordination, some some jockeying before the
04:20convention to figure out who would be the right person to to to fill his spot. You know, in four
04:26years, it's a long time, especially when you're dealing with somebody of that age. You know, we
04:31all know people in their 70s and 80s, loved ones, relatives, friends. And there could be a big
04:39difference in four years. I mean, heck, there could be a big difference in six months. There's
04:43people age when they're when they're seniors. And it's the Joe Biden of 2020 is not what we're
04:49getting now. And that was that was painfully clear last night. And it was painfully clear last night
04:54that the Joe Biden we got last night wasn't even the Joe Biden at the State of the Union who did
04:58seem more energetic, who did seem like he had more vigor in him, who wasn't incoherent at all there.
05:06But what would happen to his campaign money? Would he be able to transfer that? What would
05:10that look like? Let's say Democrats choose the path of replacing Biden.
05:15The options there are pretty limited. He could make the money would basically I mean,
05:21he could just sit on it and say, I'm not giving it to anybody. First thing you would have to do,
05:24though, would be to pay off any debts, any vendors, and then he could transfer it all
05:29to the party. And this is obviously an option should Donald Trump drop out as well,
05:33that they can transfer the money to the party and then the party could do what it wants with
05:38the money. So kind of taking us back to old school, you know, back rooms, party bosses,
05:42cigars and all that kind of stuff. And I think there'd also be a price to pay for this as well,
05:48because primary voters spoke. Did they have all the information that we do now about Joe Biden? No.
05:54But when you're going ahead and I think part of the big push the Democrats have is that
05:59they are the party that is fighting to preserve democracy. And that message is really going to be
06:05weakened and say, oh, yeah, that guy who are voters just elected in the primaries. Never
06:09mind him. We're going to nominate somebody else. But they were the party itself would get could
06:14get the money. Democrats I talked to last night and this morning feel a big gas lit today after
06:21watching that debate because Democratic lawmakers for the past year have been saying, no, President
06:26Biden behind closed doors. He is sharp. He is with it. All those videos you see are a lie.
06:33The Wall Street Journal had a piece a few weeks ago saying behind closed doors,
06:37President Biden is slipping. And Democrats came on the record after that and said,
06:42no, that is not true. That's a lie. But then the American people last night saw him at that debate
06:48and it was a different story. So who would be the Democrats that are being floated that would
06:53replace Biden? Oh, gosh, I many, many of them. And Gavin Newsom is obviously the name that comes
06:59to the forefront. He certainly positioned himself in that in that way. He has a political action
07:06committee that's already out there. He's been running around the country trying to make a big
07:10name for himself. So he's certainly the one that comes to mind. Obviously, California,
07:14not a purple state, very Democratic. The other names typically come from swing states where
07:20they're people who've shown that they can win in a purple state. So you've got Raphael Warnock,
07:24the senator from Atlanta or from Georgia, who won, I think it was like two statewide campaigns in two
07:30or three years because he came in to fill part of a term and then got reelected. So he certainly
07:36showed it. Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan is another name that's coming to the top of people's list as
07:41well. What about Vice President Kamala Harris? Because Biden has a low approval rating. She
07:48in some polls has an even lower approval rating. Is she a choice that people are floating?
07:54Well, I mean, she's the vice president. So, yes, people are going to mention her.
08:00There's some speculation that maybe Biden would have stepped aside after one term,
08:04and that was his intent. He did talk about being a transitional president years ago,
08:08but decided against it because he realized Harris was not up to the job.
08:12She's certainly taken a lot of negative press. Putting her in charge of the border is not a
08:17situation that's going to set her up for success. So, you know, she's still there.
08:22She is the logical choice to run. But I don't know. I just I just don't see her having much
08:31of a chance at all. I don't see a lot of Democrats really coalescing around her.
08:36I saw an interesting post today on Twitter that said Bill Clinton was elected 30 years ago,
08:43over 30 years ago in 1992. And as of today, he's younger than both Donald Trump and President
08:50Biden. And I'm thinking about his wife, Hillary Clinton, who ran for president in 2016.
08:55Is she a possibility?
08:59The Trump campaign would love that. I mean, there is nothing like putting up somebody who he
09:04already beat out there. No, no, you would not see a possibility. Maybe. Would that be a good
09:11decision for anybody? Only for Donald Trump. I mean, she she she ran a terrible campaign when
09:18she had a full apparatus in place now to come in and do this without any apparatus, with really,
09:23you know, being a civilian for the last six, seven years. I think it would be a horrible choice for
09:28Democrats to go in that direction. And, you know, there's nothing when you're saying, oh,
09:33these candidates are too old, they're too old. Coming with somebody about that same age is not
09:37really a good play. And when people aren't that enthusiastic about a 2020 sequel, I don't know
09:43how enthusiastic they would be about a 2016 one. But I am curious about what you're thinking about
09:49next, because obviously there aren't poll numbers that are coming in yet after the debate. But we're
09:55less than 24 hours out. And while we have seen op ed after op ed begging President Biden to drop
10:02out, pundits on all networks saying President Biden, you should step aside. Democrats are
10:08coalescing around him. President Biden himself indicated he's sticking in the race. He said,
10:13let's keep going. He also did admit he's not as good of a debater as he has been in the past.
10:20President Obama today posted on social media saying he he essentially chalked it up to a bad
10:25debate night. Congressman Jim Clyburn said he's going to tell Biden to, quote, stay the course.
10:31So what are you looking out for next?
10:35Money. You know, I think they'd claim that they had a pretty decent
10:39haul after the debate. Now, whether that was, you know, it might have just been sympathy.
10:43People might have just thought it was one of those charity commercials on there, like, you know,
10:47with the dogs in cages and then like, oh, man, we got to give this guy some money and help him out.
10:51Or whether it was because they were now excited, more excited than ever about Joe Biden's
10:56candidacy. I don't know. But it's not just the money for him. It's the money for the down ballot
11:02races, too. There's a lot of talk that he could be a drag on Democrats chances in the House and
11:09in the Senate. And, you know, you're looking at a possibility of him basically doing to the
11:14executive and the legislative branches what Ruth Bader Ginsburg did to the judiciary,
11:19where somebody who's an elder person and their party highly revered doesn't exactly
11:26know when to leave the stage. And it ends up costing their party in the long run,
11:32ends up costing the values that they fought their entire career for because they didn't
11:36know when to say goodbye. You know, they ended up getting able to get replaced by a Republican.
11:42And I think that's something that Biden is certainly at risk of doing. And, you know,
11:47given Republicans control of all three branches.
11:50You mentioned Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I'm thinking of Dianne Feinstein, who did not
11:55leave when others called on her. I'm thinking of President Biden. Do you think Democrats
12:02could potentially have a legacy problem here when you look at that type of behavior?
12:08Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's their their rules for how they handle their seniority in
12:15Congress are different than Republicans. And it's largely based on seniority. And you you're
12:19not forced off the leadership of these committees after a lot of you after a few years. So you have
12:23these people who stick around forever and they're they're not ushered off the stage and they don't
12:30know exactly when to leave. And that's just a huge problem. You know, Feinstein wasn't as big
12:36a deal because the Democrats were going to be able to replace her with another Democrat.
12:39There was some strategy to that, that they didn't want to have to spend money defending her seat
12:43if it was open. It would cost a little bit more this way. They'd have more money. But that was
12:48also somewhat short sighted. You know, at some point you're going to have to fight for, you know,
12:51Dianne Feinstein wasn't going to stay there forever. At some point that seat was going to
12:54open up and you're going to have to deal with that. So, yeah, I do think the Democrats have a
12:58problem with that. And that that goes back to Obama. Actually, I think Obama really didn't
13:04develop that deep of a bench. You know, he was widely viewed as having his own apparatus outside
13:09of the Democratic Party that got him elected and did a wonderful job getting him elected. But then
13:14when he was gone, the Democratic Party didn't have that infrastructure to follow him up. Hillary was
13:20viewed as the heir apparent. You know, that didn't turn out well for them. And there really wasn't
13:25anybody younger who was ready to come in behind him. And we got Donald Trump and we very well may
13:31get Donald Trump again. Well, Zach Everson, per usual, thank you for the conversation.
13:37My pleasure, Brittany. Have a good weekend.