Two points made by the new book Fight: Inside The Wildest Race for the White House by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes ought to leave enduring marks far beyond its actual reading audience.
The first, and smaller point, is the proof the account provides that at least ABC, and probably every legacy network, ought never to be allowed to moderate a presidential debate again.
What Allen and Parnes reveal is that during the debate between President Donald Trump and then-Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s campaign manager Chris LaCivita was furious with the ABC production team because moderators David Muir and Lindsey Davis had broken the debate rules in a one sided-fashion: The duo was “fact checking” Trump and not Harris.
The ABC staffer cornered by LaCivita, John Santucci, conceded the point and pleaded for patience, telling the justifiably enraged LaCivita that ABC knows there is a breach and that they are “in their ears” — referring to the earpieces worn by Muir and Davis — trying to stop the breach of the rules. Game, set, match: We saw it. Santucci admits it. The GOP should never forget it.
Remember that, Republicans. You can’t trust ABC. In fact, you can’t trust the legacy media period. Trump won the night in all likelihood because, as future Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Trump in the spin room immediately afterward, the audience at home saw a different debate than he experienced. Rubio was right. Any objective observer knew from the first question that ABC was in the bag for Harris. It’s just nice to have it in print from a reporter from NBC — Allen— and one from The Hill — Parnes.
The second and far more significant issue is that the country was without a full-time president from at least the fall of 2022 and an often obviously impaired one from early 2023. The “Biden Regency” should replace references to the Biden presidency.
Read the book for the details, but former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a conservative Republican and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), a left-wing Democrat, were both stunned at different times in 2022 and 2023 by then-President Joe Biden’s dazed and confused actions and demeanor. I used the term “infirm” to describe Biden from early 2022 on, but “infirmity” is a broad enough description to not rule out acuity. Acuity ought to have been ruled out. Biden lacked it. And people knew. Those closest to him knew the most.
When you finish Fight, there will be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the 25th Amendment ought to have been used to remove Biden from the presidency. We have survived our third brush with prolonged presidential incapacity —Woodrow Wilson and FDR being the first two— and we have scraped by again. But that so many conspired to conceal rather than reveal Biden’s condition will forever remain a stain on their reputations. Jill Biden and Hunter Biden get most of the blame in Fight but the guilty are legion.
Two names appear nowhere in the book: National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. That was a choice by Allen and Parnes that I did not ask them about; I only confirmed with them that they made it. The next tranche of Biden books will have to deal with the role of the keepers of national security and pick up the trail of culpability. But clearly, these two knew, as did our allies and almost certainly our enemies. How great the dereliction of duty here will be assessed and reassessed for decades to come. There will be no avoiding the reckoning.
Trump having the energy of a 35 year-old has put aside for the moment the question that the republic has to deal with. We are collectively living longer and longer, to ages never imagined by the founders. It is time to amend the Constitution to reflect, in the phrase LeBron James likes to use: Father Time is undefeated.
An amendment applicable to future presidents, vice presidents and justices of the Supreme Court obliging them to retire at 80 if not 75 is necessary. The lure of office has proven too great for too many and the danger, especially for those in the Oval, is too great. Senators above that age, as one of 100, present no threat to the republic. Joe Biden did. We cannot run that risk again.
DEMOCRATS REJECT NEWSOM’S ATTEMPTS TO DISTANCE FROM THE PARTY’S UNPOPULARITY
Blinken, Sullivan and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin may have done what they thought was their duty to minimize the risk and hide the reality. But Chief of Staff Jeff Zients? Counselors to the president Anita Dunn and Bob Baehr? All the other senior campaign officials? They must have known what the book reveals and still they said nothing. Theirs was a stunning abdication of loyalty to the republic.
After this book, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) should forever be known as “Nancy the Knife,” for she was the one who gutted the Biden family’s last and desperate delusions about running even after the country gasped and gaped at Biden’s debate performance. No credit to former President Barack Obama or any other “leader” of the Democratic Party for bringing reality to Rehoboth. Pelosi did the deed. And for once, Republicans and Democrats alike, have reason to thank her.
Hugh Hewitt is a longtime conservative commentator and author. He is the host of the Hugh Hewitt Show on Salem Radio, which airs every weekday from 3-6 p.m.