Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy joins the conversation on ‘Outnumbered’ about President Biden’s cognitive decline and fitness for office. #foxnews
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00:00Well, facing the most critical days of his 50-year political career, a defiant and motivated
00:08President Biden railed against a fast-growing number of Democrats and allies calling for
00:13him to drop out of the race.
00:15Some of them reportedly wanted him out by this Friday.
00:19They had a day in mind.
00:21Biden fired off a letter to Democrats in Congress this morning saying he will stay in the race
00:25until the end.
00:27He then came out swinging.
00:28He actually called into MSNBC, called on his phone, and denounced the calls live, saying
00:35that the voters are behind him.
00:36I'm more than presumptive.
00:38I'm going to be the Democratic nominee.
00:40The bottom line here is that we're not going anywhere.
00:44I am not going anywhere.
00:46I wouldn't be running if I didn't absolutely believe that I am the best candidate to beat
00:51Donald Trump in 2024.
00:55The president even dared his Democratic critics, who won him out, to challenge him at the August
01:00convention.
01:01I'm getting so frustrated by the elites.
01:04Now, I'm not talking about you guys, but about the elites in the party, who they know so
01:09much more.
01:10If any of these guys don't think I should run against me, go ahead, announce the president.
01:17Challenge me at the convention.
01:19Hello, everyone.
01:20This is Outnumbered.
01:21I'm Kayleigh McEnany.
01:22Here's my co-host, Emily Campagno.
01:24Also joining us, Fox News contributor Lisa Booth, Fox News contributor and the Federalist
01:28Editor-in-Chief Molly Hemingway, and former Army intelligence captain and veterans on
01:32duty chairman Jeremy Hunt.
01:35Well, this hour, Emily, in fact, at any moment, we're going to take remarks from the first
01:40lady, Jill Biden.
01:41She's in Wilmington, North Carolina.
01:43She was shouted at by reporters.
01:45She's about to speak.
01:46You're looking at this live.
01:48Reporters shouted at her.
01:49They said, is Biden staying in the race?
01:51To which she did not answer.
01:53I think she's speaking now.
01:54Let's listen live.
01:55North Carolina, you have shown me your heart, and I thank you so much.
02:00And thank you, Jason, from your time in uniform to your work at the state and federal level
02:10to supporting military families and veterans.
02:13Few people know this community in North Carolina as well as you do.
02:18So thank you for your support for Joan.
02:23And I'm glad to be joined by Mayor Sacco.
02:28Bill, you know how to build consensus and keep Wilmington moving forward.
02:34I appreciate you being here.
02:38So it's great to be back in North Carolina.
02:42From Camp Lejeune to Fort Liberty to Cherry Point, and through difficult days and times
02:53of joy, I've been honored to learn from you and to shine a light on your stories.
03:00This is a special community, and you all help keep it strong.
03:08Four years ago, Joe went from being a military father to being Commander-in-Chief.
03:18It's a responsibility he stepped into with pride.
03:22Because, as Joe reminds everyone any chance he gets, our U.S. military is the finest fighting
03:31military force in the history of the world.
03:38Of all the obligations that Joe has shouldered since he took his oath of office.
03:44So that was a little bit of First Lady Jill Biden there in Wilmington, North Carolina.
03:50As Molly Hemingway pointed out, we believe she said Delaware.
03:52I know they're used to being in Delaware.
03:54But this is indeed North Carolina, and this is before she goes to Tampa, Florida.
03:57And hits another city on support of her husband, the President, who doubled down
04:01and said he is staying in in no uncertain terms.
04:04You know, Emily, this is clearly a part of the strategy.
04:07She's one of his top surrogates.
04:09She is out there.
04:10And she's also, according to all the reporting, privately saying,
04:13we're not getting out of this, Joe.
04:15Right.
04:16And prior reports before the disastrous debate, before the follow-up interview with ABC,
04:21were noting how much more robust her campaigning was than President Biden himself.
04:26Number one.
04:27And number two, there had in fact been expose articles essentially saying, look,
04:30she's the driving force.
04:31Critics arguing that there was a refusal to sort of relinquish power in that way.
04:35But now, on the heels of the things that I just cited, those two events in particular,
04:39that it sort of smacks of an interesting lack of awareness of what's going on.
04:44We wonder if she's going to address it, to your point earlier, when asked,
04:47well, she didn't reply.
04:48At the end of the day, the question remains, well,
04:50we've sort of been in an emperor's new clothes position this whole time.
04:53Now there's a growing groundswell of Democrats who clearly feel safe
04:56calling for the President to step aside and having a new candidate.
04:59Well, there's not been any reply formally yet from Dr. Jill Biden,
05:03which it seems perhaps that she is the one at the helm.
05:06Lisa, all of this intended to put pressure on congressional Democrats.
05:09There's the letter that went out from Biden this morning.
05:11There's the call into morning, Joe.
05:13Jill Biden, these images out on the trail, notably as House members return to the Hill,
05:18will be chased down by reporters to ask, should Joe stay in the race?
05:22Yeah, and this letter to Congress is smart,
05:24because clearly he's trying to get ahead of members of Congress reconvening after recess.
05:29There was that report that Senator Warner was trying to coalesce Senate Democrats
05:33and potentially trying to push Joe Biden out of the race.
05:35Now that is over, allegedly, at least reportedly.
05:38So it looks like absent an act of God, Joe Biden is in this thing.
05:41I mean, this letter to his party basically says, go pound sand.
05:45I'm the presumptive nominee, says I've gotten 14 million of the votes, 3900 delegates.
05:50He talks about how 87 percent of the delegates have already been cast for him.
05:54I'm your presumptive nominee.
05:55And then the options to try to force him out just aren't there.
05:58I mean, the 25th Amendment is nonsense.
06:00Goal impeachment's not going to happen.
06:02And any sort of political process with a broker convention is very, very messy
06:06and also likely isn't going to happen.
06:08So, you know, good luck, Democrats.
06:10This is, you know, you get what you ask for, I guess.
06:13Good luck with Joe Biden.
06:14Well, you know, we have a lot of breaking news this hour.
06:16You're looking at part of it.
06:17And there's no one better to speak with today than former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
06:22Speaker McCarthy, I thought of you immediately this morning.
06:25You have led a delegation.
06:27You have represented Republicans.
06:29In your Freedom Political playbook, part of the job when you're in leadership is to make tough decisions
06:34and to listen to your members.
06:36And I immediately thought about Hakeem Jeffries, someone we haven't heard from.
06:39He was on a two-hour call yesterday.
06:41Some of his members said it's time for Joe Biden to step aside.
06:45What do you predict Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Leader, does in this moment?
06:51Hakeem hates to make a decision.
06:53He'll never make a fast decision.
06:55He's doing exactly what he normally does, nothing.
06:58There are two types of leaders.
06:59You're either a thermometer or a thermostat.
07:01A thermostat can tell you the temperature and change it.
07:03Hakeem's a thermometer.
07:05He sits and lets the caucus decide where to go.
07:08And that's why you're seeing it on the House.
07:10A lot of members come out against Biden.
07:13And in the Senate, you really don't have much.
07:15Not strong leadership.
07:17And he'll let the caucus get in front of him instead of stepping in front.
07:20That's why you see Joe Biden going out early before the members coming back into Congress
07:25and stating he's in this race.
07:27And I think his interview with Stephanopoulos, the two big questions that I take are really directly to Democrats.
07:33The only way I'm getting out of this race is God Almighty tells me to.
07:37And I don't care if I lose because I think I gave it my very best.
07:40And you're seeing Jill out there.
07:42She's a hard campaigner.
07:43I will tell you it's much different of why I know that they're going to stay in this race.
07:47Jill doesn't want to leave either.
07:49Many times when we had meetings in the Oval Office, Jill was there as well.
07:53Interesting.
07:55The first lady was in some of your meetings about policy?
07:59Many times Jill would come in.
08:01Wow.
08:02There was one time when I'd sit there and the president said something on this famous tour down to the pool saying,
08:08do you want to go outside?
08:10Jill turns very quickly when she hears that and says, no, they don't want to go outside.
08:16Because she knew exactly what position he was in and what he was doing.
08:20And then he just turns around.
08:21You don't want to go outside?
08:22And then let us outside.
08:24Many times I don't think she's there for policy.
08:26I think she's there to give him comfort and direct the meetings.
08:30That's stunning.
08:31That's stunning.
08:32I cannot imagine first lady Melania Trump on a policy meeting.
08:36I never once saw that happen.
08:38But what you said echoes reporting from New York Magazine that Jill led him in front of a donor,
08:42literally coaching him with what to say, how to speak.
08:45She's running the show.
08:48Look, I've been talking about this for more than a year.
08:50I've watched this decline.
08:52Every meeting I've had with this president has been different.
08:54And they would attack me because of it.
08:56This is a pattern of behavior you watched with the Hunter Biden laptop.
09:01I expect President Biden to call Secretary of State Blinken to go get 51 physicians to sign a letter
09:07that says he's cognitively fine and put that out.
09:10And then go after the media to say, don't, you can't print about this.
09:14I mean, the real question here is this is becoming their Watergate.
09:18Who knew it and when did they know it and what did they do?
09:21If you think of the vice president, she was one of the most fierce attacks against us whenever we brought this up.
09:28So did she not know this was going on?
09:31That would disqualify her to become president if she couldn't figure out this was happening.
09:36And then it would also disqualify her to be the nominee if she did and wouldn't share with the American public.
09:41You know, you mentioned this is their Watergate.
09:44I think you could be right on that.
09:46So the question becomes, what do Republicans do?
09:48Should there be a select committee into Biden's mental health the way there was one into January 6th?
09:53What does Congress do? What do Republicans do today?
09:57Well, the thing I do, I wouldn't play politics with it.
10:00Let's be very sensitive about how we go about doing this.
10:02If I was President Trump, do exactly what he is doing.
10:05At any given time, you see he is better prepared to be president than at any other time.
10:10He's disciplined. He's focused on the issue.
10:12Secure this border, curve inflation, make America strong again of where we're going.
10:17Stick on the issues.
10:18But for Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate,
10:21this is a serious position that you have a president this week.
10:24You have NATO coming in.
10:26Why do we have war in Ukraine?
10:27Did Putin pick up on this when he met with Biden?
10:30Did Biden make those wrong decisions in Afghanistan because of this situation?
10:34We do need, and the American public has a right to know.
10:37So this is a place that you shouldn't make it partisan,
10:39but Republicans and Democrats should bound together to get to the answers.
10:44The American public deserve to know the answers to these questions.
10:47Indeed they do, especially because every hostile service death in Afghanistan and Jordan
10:51took place outside of the hours in which Biden is dependably engaged.
10:55That's per Axios.
10:56Thank you so much, Speaker McCarthy.
10:59Thank you.
11:00You know, Molly, I'm stunned, and perhaps you saw my mouth a little agape
11:04as he talked about the first lady sitting in on policy meetings.
11:08He saw it.
11:10Well, I feel like a lot of Americans have seen this for a long time,
11:13not just the people who are in private meetings with the president,
11:16but people who are watching all of the videos or audio of the president
11:20over the last year or even maybe four years.
11:23And so it's kind of interesting to watch all this hysteria going on right now
11:27because half the country or more have known about this.
11:30And it's like we're all supposed to be hysterical because the media decided
11:34to start being a little more honest about what's going on.
11:37But I do think, you know, what's interesting here is we're all talking about
11:41whether President Biden should be the nominee in 2024.
11:46If all of this stuff is legitimately a big issue, isn't the only question
11:50we should be talking about whether he should be president?
11:52And he's in charge of the troops right now, talking about, you know,
11:56how things will be years from now.
11:57If it's really a problem and the way to sort of test whether people
12:01are being legitimate about this or not is whether they're focused mostly
12:04on the presidency or whether they're just trying to save their tushes
12:08for the 2024 election.
12:10Great point.
12:11I totally agree.
12:12And one thing that's concerning, too, is that when you hear,
12:14even from some of the top Democrats who have called on Biden to get out
12:18of the race, they always start by just prefacing by saying, you know,
12:21protect your legacy, you know, stand on your record of accomplishments
12:24and step aside.
12:25And I just think, what legacy?
12:27I mean, his legacy has been a story of failure.
12:30I mean, failure at the border, millions of illegal immigrants
12:33pouring through, drugs pouring through, our young people overdosing
12:36on fentanyl.
12:37I mean, his legacy has been failure on the international scale,
12:40cozying up to Iran, which has empowered Hezbollah and Hamas,
12:43attacking Israel.
12:44And he did not end Putin, as he so claimed.
12:47In fact, Putin just attacked a children's hospital in the last 24 hours.
12:50I mean, it has been a total disaster on a global stage,
12:53and it's been failure.
12:54And I honestly think that years from now, I think that he would actually
12:59prefer the story be about when he loses in November.
13:02He would probably prefer the narrative be that he was this aged, you know,
13:06man that probably should have stepped aside a little sooner,
13:08because that's a much better narrative than the truth,
13:10which is that his whole legacy has been a story of failure from the start.
13:14Yeah, that's exactly right.
13:15And he stopped Putin.
13:16Remember, he said that to your point.
13:17He said, Putin invaded a sovereign country.
13:19Don't forget that.
13:20Let's snooze to Putin now.
13:21Let's snooze to Putin.
13:22All right.
13:23Hey, everyone.
13:24I'm Emily Campagno.
13:25Catch me and my co-hosts, Harris Faulkner and Kayleigh McEnany,
13:29on Outnumbered every weekday at 12 p.m. Eastern, or set your DVR.
13:33Also, don't forget to subscribe to the Fox News YouTube page for daily highlights.