Biden Debate Fallout & Seismic SCOTUS Rulings | 7.1.24

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John Bickley: President Biden's disastrous debate has legacy media demanding that he step down while Democrat leaders circle the wagons. He may not have gotten the word out, but the thoughts were great. Who would replace Biden and how exactly would that play out? I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Monday, July 1st, and this is Morning Wire.

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John Bickley: The Supreme Court issues a series of seismic rulings with another massive one on presidential immunity coming today. What we should expect is the court saying when it comes to a president or a former president, they do have some immunity, but not absolute. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

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John Bickley: Four days removed from his disastrous debate performance, President Joe Biden is struggling to convince voters and fellow Democrats that he's still the best man to beat Donald Trump. Here are the latest fallout from the historic debacle as Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.

Cabot Phillips: Hey, Cabot, so a nightmare scenario here for Biden and the Democratic Party. Where do things stand now?

John Bickley: Well, coming into Thursday night, the president had one clear objective as he took the stage, convinced the 50 million plus Americans watching that he's still up for the job. And by every metric, he failed. According to the latest CBS polling, a stunning 72% of Americans now say he should not be running for office. And on a separate question, just 27% say he has the mental and cognitive health to serve a second term. And even more concerning for the White House, 80% of independents, even 40% of Democrats now say he does not have the mental acuity to serve. And finally, 45 percent of Democrat voters say he should step aside.

Cabot Phillips: Now, we saw a very different message than we're used to from media outlets that, to this point, have been very friendly to the Biden campaign. Yeah, you're right. To this point, they've largely ignored concerns over his mental fitness, turning the topic around on Trump, saying, essentially, he's also old. But that all changed this weekend. The pages of The Washington Post, Atlantic, New Yorker and Wall Street Journal were all filled with columns urging him to drop out. The New York Times editorial board, who are quite openly anti-Trump, even ran a front page piece entitled To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race. The editorial board of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said the same, calling on him to bow out, quote, for the good of the nation. And on national airwaves, the criticism was even more vocal, with popular left-wing hosts on CNN, MSNBC, and even The View urging him to step aside.

Cabot Phillips: What was going on through your head as you watched this last night?

John Bickley: It was really hard to watch and it kind of pains me to say this today but I think President Biden needs to step down and be replaced But it's worth noting here, the most vocal defenders at this point of Biden remaining on the ticket are now those within the Trump campaign. They spent all weekend saying it's too late to replace him. The race is set. He's your guy. Deal with it.

Cabot Phillips: Yeah. Now, what sort of reaction have we seen from the Biden campaign themselves?

John Bickley: Well, no one there is arguing that Biden had a good performance. Their main line of defense has been that he is still the only man who can beat Trump and that this race is about more than just two men, but a fight over two different visions for the country. That's something we heard repeatedly this weekend.

Cabot Phillips: Here's Biden making that case in North Carolina. I don't walk as easy as I used to. I don't speak as smoothly as I used to. I don't debate as well as I used to. I know how to tell the truth. I know how to do this job.

John Bickley: Now, to give you a better idea of their messaging, in a fundraising email from the campaign, they took aim at, quote, the bedwetting brigade calling for Joe Biden to drop out, adding that replacing him would lead to, quote, weeks of chaos and pave the highway to losing. We're also seeing similar statements from some key Democrat leaders. Tell us about that.

Cabot Phillips: Well, the morning after the debate, there were plenty of Democrat lawmakers saying off the record that Biden had to step down. But the big question was whether any big names would get the ball rolling and say it on the record. But now it seems clear they are circling the wagons. Over the weekend, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Jim Clyburn, and Nancy Pelosi all released similar statements reaffirming their support for his candidacy. And while prominent Democrats might be sticking by Biden publicly, we are hearing a very different message off the record. For example, a number of White House staffers spoke anonymously to Axios, saying there are, quote, different Bidens depending on the time of day. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., they say he's engaged and with it. That's when they schedule nearly all of his public appearances. Outside of those hours, though, they say that he is more fatigued, confused, and prone to miscues like the one we saw on debate night. And not a very reassuring message to those concerned about his condition.

Cabot Phillips: Cabot, thanks for reporting.

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John Bickley: Both the New York Times and Atlanta Journal-Constitution have now called for President Biden to step aside as the nominee, as have a host of left-wing pundits. But for now, elected officials are still behind the president, at least publicly. Here to discuss what other options the party might be exploring to replace Biden is Daily Wire contributor David Marcus.

David Marcus: Hey, Dave, so first, assuming this is even possible, who is the most likely candidate who could drop in?

John Bickley: Morning, John. Kamala Harris would be by far the most likely replacement. Even setting aside the optics of passing over the first black woman vice president, she is in that role as the natural backup plan. Now, it's been pointed out, of course, that her approval rating has been worse than Biden's. But on the very poll the Biden camp sent out to show Biden was still strong, he and Harris were performing exactly the same against Trump. So if their polling is the same, but Harris erases the risk of debilitating senior moments, that leads to Harris. It's also worth noting that when Lyndon Baines Johnson dropped out of the race in 1968, he got an immediate and double digit bounce in his approval rating Biden could too And if Biden approval rises so does the administration and by extension they hope Harris She also importantly already has the support of Representative James Clyburn should Biden drop out. And it was Clyburn more than anyone who secured the 2020 nomination for the president. Right. Now, there have been a few other names floated who could potentially get the nomination nod in a disputed convention. What names are we hearing? The other prominent options are the governors. So Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, I include Andrew Cuomo, which might sound crazy, but not for nothing, John, the man has been on TV a lot lately. The supposed upside of these choices is that they don't have the negative opinions already baked in nearly as high as Harris does. So they could have more room to grow. But honestly, anyone other than Harris could badly divide an already fractured party. It wouldn't simply acknowledge that Biden is faltering, but that the administration has failed and the party needs new direction.

David Marcus: Now, as to the logistics of Biden being replaced, would this have to happen before the convention? There's a convoluted system by which he could be replaced after accepting the nomination, but it involves the chair of the Democratic Party, Jamie Harrison, consulting Congress and the Governor's Association to recommend someone to the DNC. This would theoretically allow the party to circumvent any delegates who went rogue, but it would also involve Biden dropping out just weeks, if not days, after giving an accepted speech.

David Marcus: Dave, thanks so much for reporting.

John Bickley: Thanks for having me.

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John Bickley: The Supreme Court has released a series of consequential rulings over the last week and will release another major one today on presidential immunity. Joining us to discuss is Jessica Levinson, professor at Loyola Law School and host of the Passing Judgment podcast.

Jessica Levinson: Hi, Jessica. So let's start with presidential immunity, some sweeping implications there. What's at stake and what do we expect the ruling to be?

John Bickley: This case is hugely consequential, not just for former President Trump, but for other future former presidents and future presidents. Because fundamentally, we're asking the question as to whether or not somebody who's been the chief executive of the United States has immunity from criminal prosecution based on official acts. And I expect what we're going to see from the Supreme Court is some sort of middle ground that acknowledges that presidents, frankly, aren't like the rest of us, that they have certain job duties and responsibilities that do set them apart. And so what we should look for is for the court to say that when it comes to official acts, There are some official acts where a president undertakes them and they do have immunity from criminal prosecution. The real question is how broadly they define that category. There's already Supreme Court case law that acknowledges for civil cases where you sue for monetary damages that presidents are absolutely immune from being liable. And that is going to give the court, I think the roadmap to say civil cases are different from criminal cases. You can't be absolute immune from criminal prosecution because criminal cases are more important than civil cases. But there still is some immunity that attaches.

Jessica Levinson: Now to the rulings that have just been released Friday, let's start with the January 6 ruling Fisher versus United States. They specifically use the obstruction of an official proceeding charge in a way that it had never been used before for hundreds of J6 cases. The Supreme Court has now ruled that the DOJ was wrong in using that charge in the way that they did. How does this potentially impact these cases, including the federal case against Trump?

John Bickley: The Fisher case is a big case because we have a majority of the Supreme Court saying the Department of Justice overstepped when it used this federal obstruction statute to try and charge certain people involved in January 6th This was really a case of statutory interpretation. And what the court said is when we're looking at this federal obstruction statute, that we can't read this section in isolation, that we have to refer to other parts of the statute. And specifically, the statute talks about people who corruptly try to obstruct an official proceeding. But it also refers back to another part of the statute, according to the court, that talks about document destruction or alteration or concealment. In terms of the impact of the case, I think we all need to be careful because a lot of the people charged under the statute also faced other charges. And so for many of those people, this will not be a huge change for a lot of people who agreed to plead guilty. They will likely not want to unwind those particular plea deals. Now, I think for a lot of people, the big question is what happens to the case against the former president? The federal D.C. election interference case, in that case, two of the four federal statutes at issue do, in fact, involve this statute. So a loss for Fisher and a narrowing of the federal obstruction statute is not a death knell for 50 percent of the case against former President Trump in that D.C. election interference case.

Jessica Levinson: Another seismic ruling that came down Friday, arguably the most significant in many ways, was the court striking down what's called Chevron deference. The ruling significantly limits the power of federal agencies. What does this mean going forward?

John Bickley: So when we're talking about Chevron deference, we're talking about a 40-year-old Supreme Court case that says when there's a federal statute and when there's ambiguity in the statute, then we defer to a reasonable interpretation by the agency that administers that statute. So it's really about whether or not federal judges second-guess the decisions by federal agencies. Now, this absolutely is a big deal in the sense that there are many federal agencies, there are many open-ended statutes, and a lot of these federal agencies, Think about the FEC. Think about the NLRB. A lot of them do promulgate regulations that are under Chevron entitled to deference by federal courts. Having said that, the Supreme Court has really backed away from the Chevron case for almost a decade now. One lens is to say this is just really the Supreme Court telling lower courts to get in line with what is already their view, that when it comes to agencies interpreting the statutes that they administer and enforce, they're not entitled to deference.

Jessica Levinson: Jessica Levinson, thank you for coming on.

John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know.

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