Chuck Todd Claims Biden’s Own Team Sabotaged Him With Disastrous Debate Against Trump
Ex-NBC host Chuck Todd says he will “go to his grave” believing former President Joe Biden’s own team sabotaged him by setting up the disastrous debate against Donald Trump last year that led to his exit from the 2024 White House race.
On Thursday’s episode of The Chuck ToddCast, The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich raised the notion that those in Biden’s inner circle thought it would be a “good thing” to see the then-president’s cognitive issues on a world stage.
“Look, I will go to my grave believing that the debate was intentional for that,” Todd said.
The former Meet the Press moderator went on to assert that the “Biden circle was never going to admit the problem.”
Read the conversation here:
MARK LEIBOVICH: It goes to this, and I’ve actually quoted it a few times, not like in print, but I mean it’s the idea that there were people within the White House and the Biden campaign who thought it would be a good thing to create some kind of daylight for the world to see what they were dealing with on a day-to-day basis.
CHUCK TODD: Look, I will go to my grave believing that the debate was intentional for that. I — Anita Dunn and Jen O’Malley Dillon will deny until they’re blue in the face and if I were in their shoes and I did it, I’d deny it until I was blue in my face, OK?
It’s like whoever the hell helped Reagan delay the hostage release, OK? It’s never going to be admitted, but it’s too convenient. Really? You’re telling me your don’t release the hostage until Jan. 20 and somehow the incoming presidential team had nothing to do with that and there was no promises made?
Sorry, you know, I’m an Occam’s Razor guy, right? But nobody’s ever gonna cop to it. It’ll be on deathbed diaries before we find out the truth about it. There was no other reason — this idea, “Well, we needed to shake up the race.” In late June?
LEIBOVICH: Oh, you shook up the race, all right.
TODD: No, they knew when the nomination was going to be, and they knew they needed to deal with this with an opportunity to make a change if it was necessary. I’ll always believe this. And again, I know it’s not fair to Jen and Anita. They may be listening now, cursing us. “Screw you! People are never..” It didn’t matter. If you didn’t do it, then you shoulda.
Like, I endorse what you did, because it was pretty clear from Jake’s reporting and Alex’s reporting in the book, that the Biden circle was never going to admit the problem. And that the only way you were going to force a change was sunshine. This is not about reporters reporting more shit. No, this was about people seeing it for themselves.
LEIBOVICH: In a way, much more vivid — I mean, I think people intuited it. I think 80 percent of the country intuited it, basically.
TODD: Well, that was always my point. I never accepted the premise that the press was covering it up. What are we hiding? We were telling you, “He’s using the short staircase.” We were showing you these pictures. Hey, he doesn’t do interviews.
LEIBOVICH: Ever.
TODD: In hindsight, should I have said proactively, “Well he’s not doing interviews. I wonder if it’s because they’re afraid of showing his age”? I could have done that.
LEIBOVICH: Yeah.
TODD: I don’t know. I don’t feel comfortable without it sourced, right? When we’re dealing with peoples’ health. And I do think we all have sensitivities. When it comes to health issues, I’ve always looking at it through the prism of what am I willing to disclose.
LEIBOVICH: Yeah, that’s true, but 1) you’re not president, and 2) it’s not like written all over your face. It was intuitively an observable fact. There was no cover-up. The cover-up was completely futile.
TODD: To me, the coverup … it was the absurdity. Like watching Chuck Schumer today you know, avoiding answering these questions about Biden. It’s an easy answer. Of course! Of course he shouldn’t have run.
I’ve had this conversation with multiple governors. I’ve had this conversation with multiple senators, and none of them will go on the record in saying it. Come on guys, you would help your own credibility here. I think it is going to be a stain on anybody that was associated with Biden. I think Pete Buttigieg, if it wasn’t for his service with Biden, I would accept the premise that he might be one of the frontrunners. But I think the Biden baggage is so heavy for the Democratic Party voter that I think it becomes a problem for him.
Watch above via YouTube.
