‘Pod Save America' host says he struggled over whether to talk about Biden decline
'Pod Save America' co-host Jon Lovett recently said he struggled to speak about former President Biden's mental state for fear of his statements' impact on the 2024 presidential race.
'I remember feeling I want to talk about this as a huge liability. To talk about this is something Joe Biden can overcome, but I'm not going to go so far as to say, 'I think Joe Biden must drop out. He is too old to be president,'' Lovett said during a Thursday appearance on The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart.
'A, because I didn't know exactly what was going on behind the scenes, but B, if Joe Biden is the candidate, I want him to f—— win,' he continued.
During Biden's last months in office, critics often railed at the leader's slurred speech, alleging the oldest sitting president was experiencing a cognitive decline.
However, rumors were denied by both family members and staffers alike. Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's new book, 'Original Sin' outlines the testimony of Democratic insiders who say they watched Biden's downfall.
The book details Lovett's meeting with the former president alongside co-hosts Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer in April of 2024. The narrative recounts the conclusion of the meeting leading the three to believe the leader came across as 'incoherent.'
During Thursday's podcast, Lovett said he didn't speak on his concerns in hopes of not 'having the words we're saying taken out of context and all of a sudden be part of the case against Joe Biden from the right — that would use any person criticizing Joe Biden from the left as a weapon against him.'
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Chicago Tribune
17 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
What is the CBO? A look at the small office inflaming debate over President Donald Trump's tax bill
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21 minutes ago
Cuomo, Mamdani vie for top spot in NYC Democratic mayoral primary
With just three weeks to go until New York City's Democratic mayoral primary, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is on track for a political comeback nearly four years after having resigned his governorship amid allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct -- but a Democratic socialist candidate continues to gain momentum among the crowded slate of contenders. All the while, incumbent mayor Eric Adams is staying off the primary ballot, and is running, instead, as an independent. Whoever comes out of the June 24 Democratic primary victorious is more than likely New York City's next mayor -- nearly every borough in the overwhelmingly Democratic city voted for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, per election returns. Cuomo attempts a comeback Cuomo announced his entrance into the race in March, saying in an announcement video that he was the best leader for New York City, which he said was "in crisis." Cuomo's governorship was derailed after several women accused him of sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct. He resigned as governor in 2021, saying that the controversy would cause undue turmoil for the state, but has consistently denied the allegations and recently told the New York Times he regrets resigning. A New York state prosecutor dropped criminal forcible touching charges against Cuomo in 2022. Cuomo also faced scrutiny for the state's tracking of deaths from COVID-19 in nursing homes during his tenure after reports that Cuomo and his team withheld from state legislators the true number of COVID-19 deaths at New York nursing homes. Cuomo has defended his performance and the count, and an independent investigation in 2024 found that Cuomo's nursing home response policy was based on "the best available data at the time." The Justice Department has begun an inquiry based off of a referral from Congress about Cuomo's handling of nursing home deaths during the pandemic, according to congressional documents and a source familiar with the matter. In a statement, Cuomo's spokesperson says the inquiry is "election interference." "Governor Cuomo testified truthfully to the best of his recollection about events from four years earlier, and he offered to address any follow-up questions from the Subcommittee — but from the beginning this was all transparently political," Cuomo's spokesperson, Rich Azzopardi said in a statement in response to the inquiry. His campaign has not been without roadblocks. The New York City Campaign Finance Board has withheld some matching funds from his campaign, saying that his campaign may have improperly coordinated with an independent group. Cuomo's campaign and the group separately maintain they did not break any rules or do anything wrong, and the campaign expects to eventually receive the full funds. And even still, at the end of May, Cuomo's team announced the campaign raised $3.9 million since Feb. 28. And while other candidates have brought up the allegations and hit at Cuomo's record, no one attack seems to be sticking, and polling shows that Cuomo remains the front-runner. Near ubiquitous name recognition and a gubernatorial record that resonates contribute to Cuomo's favorable polling, said Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University. Some of that record, Moss said, includes Cuomo's actions as governor such as rebuilding the beleaguered LaGuardia Airport and passing a law legalizing same-sex marriage in 2011, before it was legalized nationally. 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And with early voting starting on June 14, the window for candidates to make their case for the job is closing fast. Mamdani has also faced some scrutiny over the feasibility of some of his plans, as well as his views on Israel, given New York's large Jewish population. He has said that he supports boycotts and pressure on Israel over its conduct in the Israel-Hamas war, but frames that within his general "support for universal human rights", as he told The Forward in April, and he has emphasized policies to combat antisemitism. In May, Mamdani told a reporter that he supports Israel's "right to exist as a state." At a forum held by the UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council in May, he did not answer directly when asked if Israel has the right to exist specifically as a Jewish state. 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Politico
30 minutes ago
- Politico
Karine Jean-Pierre is leaving the Democratic Party. Her former White House colleagues have some thoughts.
Karine Jean-Pierre's announcement that she's leaving the Democratic Party — timed with the rollout of a new book — has detonated long-simmering grievances among her former White House colleagues about Jean-Pierre's pursuit of celebrity and personal media exposure while serving as then-President Joe Biden's press secretary. The attention-grabbing ploy lit up Democratic and Biden alumni texting groups and reignited frustrations that burned for years about Jean-Pierre, according to seven former Biden administration officials granted anonymity to describe private conversations. One former official recalled that Jean-Pierre had joked about becoming an independent even while on the job in the Biden White House, an off-key comment for someone ostensibly serving as a major messenger for the Democratic Party. Another former official said that Jean-Pierre had begun working during the Biden administration with a New York-based publicist and had copied that person on official emails before some of Jean-Pierre's White House colleagues intervened. 'Everyone thinks this is a grift,' the first former official said of Jean-Pierre's book project. As Biden's press secretary, Jean-Pierre's halting, ineffectual briefings exasperated reporters and routinely offered material for the Republican Party's main account on X. She frustrated colleagues throughout the West Wing for focusing on raising her own profile while leaving the hands-on management of media relations and the White House press shop to other aides. While it's unclear how she will portray Biden or her time in the White House in the book, titled 'Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines,' several former colleagues expressed confusion at how Jean-Pierre seemingly intends to paint Biden as a victim while pinning her own decision to leave the party on his 'broken' White House. The teasing of the book project by the Hachette imprint stated that Jean-Pierre will offer her view of the three weeks of turmoil following Biden's miserable debate last summer that culminated with him dropping his reelection bid, a result the book's promotional material blames in part on 'a betrayal by the Democratic party.' Jean-Pierre's former staffers offered withering criticism of what they see as an opportunistic grift. 'She made a joke about being an independent last year and now it's a book. All ideas are monetary — even the dumb ones,' said one of the former staffers. Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic strategist who worked in the Commerce Department's communications shop during Biden's term, also took issue with the book's apparent premise. 'Kamala Harris and the entire Biden/Harris campaign did hero's work to avoid losing 400 electoral votes and giving Republicans a supermajority in Congress, which is what would have happened if he stayed on the ticket,' she said. 'It's more productive to focus on that, and thank Biden for doing the responsible thing by stepping aside, than it is to pretend this was an unwarranted act of betrayal.' Democrats, Legacki continued, should shift their focus to the effects of Republican's 'Big Beautiful Bill, which she said would have been even more drastic had Biden remained on the ticket and bolstered the GOP's numbers in Congress. 'People will literally die because of Republican Medicaid cuts. Kids will go hungry because of SNAP cuts,' she said. 'The only reason we stand a chance to reduce the harm inflicted is the Democratic Party did the right thing here. It's completely nuts to be more upset that the Party didn't prioritize Joe Biden's ego and keep him on the ticket than to thank god we averted complete and total disaster.' A New York-based publicist, Gilda Squire, worked informally with Jean-Pierre while she was in the White House and was, on multiple occasions, copied on official emails before staffers raised the issue, another former official said. Squire previously served as publicity director for HarperCollins Publishers and also did PR for Penguin Putnam Publishing, according to her LinkedIn. And Jean-Pierre was the subject of several lengthy profiles in lifestyle publications, including Vogue and Women's Health and traveled to New York to appear on The View. According to two of the former officials, Jean-Pierre had been hoping for a post-White House job as a co-host on the show, following the template of her predecessor, Jen Psaki, who departed the job after just more than a year for an anchor job at MSNBC. But no such opportunity materialized for Jean-Pierre, a factor three of her former colleagues surmised that likely led to the book. Neither Jean-Pierre nor Squire responded to a request for comment. While a number of former colleagues kept their comments private, Jeremy Edwards, who served in the press shop under Jean-Pierre, posted a succinct response to her book project on X: 'lol.' Jean-Pierre wouldn't be the first press secretary in recent years to turn against her boss or former colleagues. Stephanie Grisham, who served as press secretary during President Donald Trump's first term, authored a 2021 book detailing her experience in the White House and how Trump often berated her. But whereas Grisham was never allowed to brief at the podium, Jean-Pierre was the public face of the administration for two and half years. One Democratic operative who worked with Jean-Pierre prior to her White House tenure called the sudden turnabout 'the most grift-y thing I've seen in a long time, and that's saying something in Washington.' 'SHE was the public face telling us all that this White House was on track and that Biden was amazing. And now she doesn't even want to be a Democrat????' one of the former Biden White House officials said via text. 'She's making herself the middle ground here when Republicans hate her. She's not in any position to be a connector of our two party system and assuming she could be is just ego.'
