‘Biggest Scandal In Democratic History’ Watergate vs Bidengate | Plus Emirates CEO Tim Clark

Who do you think history will judge more harshly, Biden or Nixon? We all know this scandal is just beginning to roll out. We aren't even close to getting the full picture. To me, the scandal is the Democratic Party and the staff. You know who was screaming at the top of their lungs that they wanted different choices for president? The voters. I know that you guys care a lot about the story, but you also care about access. And Jake Tapper has done this multiple times, but we are missing all the stories that actually affect people. Nixon versus Biden, it's almost laughable. Donald Trump, the president of the United States, hit on this very well in that speech he made in Riyadh where he basically said the days of the kind of Western neocons thinking the way that the Middle East would develop would be you'd bomb it and then rebuild it. They're gone. The epicenter of wealth creation at the moment is in the Middle East. There is style, there is pache. They've never been intimidated, never been threatened. They just got on with their job. Are you jealous that Qatar is supplying the Americans with the new plane for Air Force One, or are you very glad to have dodged the PR bullet that's come their way? These things have a habit of catching the eye of the world, etc. Whichever way you want to go, but it makes life interesting.

I've been in Dubai this week for the Arab Media Summit. Later in the show, we have a fascinating interview with Sir Tim Clark, boss of Emirates, one of the world's biggest airlines, who has some remarkable insights on air safety, Trump's tariffs, and the US president's new plane. The presidential scandal on many sites as the biggest in United States history is Richard Nixon's role in the infamous Watergate break-ins. However, the shocking details revealed in Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's new book on President Biden's cognitive decline whilst in office and the conspiracy to cover it all up could now well rival it or as I believe even worse. Here's what Tapper himself said when I pressed him on it on Uncensored. It is a scandal. Yes, it is. It is. It is. It is without question and maybe even worse than Watergate in some ways, right? Because Richard Nixon was in control of his faculties when he wasn't drinking.

Well, in this special edition of Uncensored, we've assembled some real political, academic, and media heavyweights to debate the question, Biden or Nixon? Who scandalized the US presidency more? On my panel, the former anchor of Meet the Press and now host of the Chuck Todd cast, Chuck Todd; Washington journalist and editor of the JFK facts on Substack, Jefferson Morley; Jeff Shepard, who lived through Watergate as the youngest lawyer on President Nixon's White House staff. He's now the most prominent critic of the Watergate prosecutions. And Johanna Maser, the former aide to President Obama and host of the Press Advance podcast. Well, welcome to all of you. Chuck Todd, let me start with you. You've covered a lot of scandals in your time, a lot of presidencies in your time. I was genuinely fascinated when I pressed Jake Tapper because there's a line at the end of the book, I'm sure you've read it, where they talk about this is not a Watergate and they kind of leave it floating whether they think it's better or worse. Jake actually conceded to me that actually he thinks it probably is worse. What is your view?

Well, I think we have to have proof that there was a belief of cognitive decline and intentional cover up, right? We're still not there. There's certainly plenty of evidence that he wasn't really up to doing the job, that he was going to struggle to have a second term, that his behavior in the first term was indicative of somebody that couldn't handle the modern rigors of the presidency. So, and if you look at the damage Donald Trump is doing to our current economy or the current relationships around the world, do you hold Biden accountable for that? I know plenty of Democrats who do, right? So, it's almost like every piece of bad information or bad decision making that Donald Trump makes only ratchets up the anger among some on the left at Joe Biden and his family's selfishness, but more importantly, the staff around, right? To me, the scandal is the Democratic Party and the staff. Because you know who was screaming at the top of their lungs that they wanted different choices for president? The voters. They were ignoring the polling. They were ignoring what voters were actually saying. You know, to me that was the original sin of this mess. But to equate it, look, I actually think the worst scandal of any president is Teapot Dome and Harding. Although we may yet have something that rivals both Watergate and Teapot Dome when this crypto thing collapses on the Trump family, but for now I'm not ready to say it's Watergate. But inside the Democratic Party, biggest scandal in their history arguably in the modern era.

And do you accept, Chuck, as Jake pretty much did and Alex did, that the mainstream media in America, both television, cable, newspapers and so on, just collectively massively dropped the ball with this and that one of the reasons is that there clearly has been an inherent bias against Trump and pro pretty much anyone that might stop him pervading through the mainstream media. So there wasn't the intent perhaps to go looking for the real story as there might have been had it been Trump.

Well, look, I always try to divide it in half because I don't accept the premise that a cable host is a journalist, right? And there was one cable host in particular that would attack members of the press, attack any columnist that came out and said Joe Biden doesn't have it. He shouldn't run again. And so but I accept the premise. Look, where I think the ball was dropped was the White House press corps in that building, right? That's where, you know, this is the conversation Jake and I have had. You know, had we been in those chairs, you know, that's where you sort of notice these things. Where's the president today? How come he's not coming to talk to us? That missing relentlessness. And I think that, you know, I joke Trump derangement syndrome is something that a lot of people have, right? It's not just people that are Trump opponents that have it. Trump fans sometimes have it, right? They think there's mystical powers in sort of Trump derangement syndrome, but I do think there were a lot of people in that Biden White House and then some in sort of the intelligentsia of the press, not the day-to-day journalists, who were looking at like, well, yeah, Biden is struggling, but Trump's crazy. So, the choice is kind of impaired Biden versus crazy Trump. So it became sort of a it was that became the rationalization. I'm not saying it was the right rationalization, but I don't think it was like a collective cover up more than it was sort of almost human response to, geez, I have a bad idea over here and a worse one over there. Which do I choose?

Let me bring in Jefferson Morley, historian. Look, they're both to me they're both huge scandals. I did listen to what Jake said with great interest because he made the point that in Nixon's case, for example, yes, he did a very bad thing. Yes, he was a party clearly an instrumental party to a huge cover up of a criminal activity and that's why he resigned the presidency. But he was still perfectly compos mentis, albeit as Jake said with the caveat when he wasn't drinking too much. But he was compos mentis. No one questioned Nixon's cognitive abilities. And the question really about the comparison, I guess, is that Joe Biden clearly from this book, I mean, a lot of it is really like shocking to read that his cognitive decline was extremely marked and to the point where could he actually be trusted with really important decisions at 2:00 a.m.? And the answer seems to be from the book's authors, no, actually. And that seems to me to be more dangerous than a compos mentis president who's trying to cover up a bit of naughty activity with people trying to nick some information. You know, I'm not to diminish the Watergate, but just to say that if you have a president who's not there, who's not able to make sensible, calm decisions that could affect the entire planet, that seems to me to be a more dangerous scenario and therefore the scandal is greater. What are your thoughts?

When I think about a scandal, I think about three dimensions. I think about criminality. I think about moral corruption. And I think about financial corruption. And so when you compare Watergate to Bidengate, let's call it. You know, what do we see? We don't see criminality in Bidengate. We see moral corruption, hubris, arrogance, the arrogance of power. We don't see people in it for the money. That was not really a dimension in Watergate either, but in Watergate you definitely had criminality, burglars, wiretapping, and you also had institutional corruption of the CIA and the FBI. So, you know, I think you're doing a little too much to diminish Watergate in retrospect. So, to me, Watergate is the bigger scandal. And then, you know, if you look at the Trump administration in those three dimensions, financial corruption, moral corruption, and criminality, you know, we see all of those. So, I think that Biden is an astonishing scandal. I do think that there was no desire to dig in. It was a cultural failing of the press, not just of individuals. I wasn't covering the press. I wasn't paying that close attention. I didn't regard it as my beat at the time. I remember confiding in a friend when Biden stayed in saying, 'God, I wish he hadn't done that.' And I think that, you know, now what we see how many people on the inside knew about this. That's the scandal here. It's a moral corruption, arrogance of power and that's reflected, you know, in the corruption of the press and the failure to dig into this.

Now, everybody knows how much I enjoy my tea, and I'm very happy to say that today's show is sponsored by Peaks Pure Fermented Teas. These are not your average brews. They're sourced from 250-year-old wild trees in the Himalayan foothills, which are untouched by modern farming. No pesticides, no fertilizers, just nature at its best. Pure delivers a full spectrum of prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics, just like the fermented foods found in longevity hotspots. It comes in crystal form, so there's no messing around. Just dissolve, sip, and feel the difference. It's trusted by health experts, including Casey Means and Dr. Mark Hyman. There's teas for all occasions, and they all support your gut health, metabolism, and cellular renewal. The next time you put the kettle on, ask yourself, is my tea working as hard as me? Peaks Pure Fermented Teas for the gut of a Brit and the longevity of a Himalayan monk. Get 20% off for life, plus a free frother and glass beaker with the pure bundle. Visit peaklife.com/pers. That's peaklife.com/pers.

I mean, the most stark thing I think I came up with was I went back over all the columns I wrote in the Biden presidency for the New York Post, many of which I was writing from London. And you know, if a Brit in London was writing column after column, as I was, saying that Biden was clearly cognitively impaired, and in fact, in one column 2 years before the election, saying it may be time to consider a 25th Amendment move, it does beg a belief that the very same questions were not being aggressively and repeatedly asked by American journalists on the airwaves in America. Anyway, I'd simply put that out there.

No, but I think the failure peers was that those conversations weren't being had off camera. And so, you know, it wasn't like people were competing to get the Biden's story about Biden's cognitive decline. There was this cultural consensus, don't go there. I think because Chuck said, you know, people said, well, Trump's worse, so you know, we'll give Biden a pass on this. Well, we've had direct quotes, haven't we? I mean, people like Sam Harris, who's obviously a smart commentator said, 'I would rather have had a president in a coma where the duties of the presidency are executed by a committee over Trump.' So, he'd rather have someone in a coma with a committee making decisions than Trump, which is a pretty staggering thing to say on the record.

There's the expression of moral corruption, you know, that you really don't care about what's right and wrong and all you want is your access to power.

Yeah. Which plays into what Chuck said about the Trump derangement syndrome, which I agree by the way can work both sides. Jeff Shepard, I can't think of a better person. Sorry. But Piers, maybe your question is, you know, which is the bigger scandal in terms of the president? Which is the bigger scandal in terms of the press? You know, the press distinguished itself in Watergate. And the press did not distinguish itself in this. So, for the press, this is a bigger scandal than Watergate.

Yeah. And I agree. And Jeff's taken a lot of heat for it. Jake has taken a lot of heat in particular because people are saying, and there's some validity to that, that he should have said a lot of this stuff not in a book for money after the event, but while it was all happening.

Let me bring in Jeff Shepard. I can't think, as I said, a better person to make the comparison. As someone who worked on Nixon's defense team. We've got two so far who don't think the Biden scandal was worse than Watergate. What's your view?

Well, I think they're hedging their bet because, as we all know, this scandal is just beginning to roll out. We aren't even close to getting the full picture. Pretty much we've got the full picture on Watergate. And of course my views are different from the other people's. I think Watergate represents the beginning of lawfare that there were excess there was more than sufficient press coverage 52,000 column inches on Watergate and characterized by the absence of press inquiry in Bidengate. The press and you know you're trying to shave well it was the guys in the correspondence room. It was not the journalists. It was not the cable news guys. Everybody's trying to put distance between them and what seemed obvious to about half of America that we had a president who was only occasionally lucid and the press didn't want to look into it. I think the lack of press inquiry. They should have been on this like a dog on the bone. And I think it's much worse than Watergate again.

Fascinating. Yeah. I mean, you know, I remember I mean, look, people say, 'Well, how are we to know, you know, and the White House were lying to us and so on.' You didn't really need to know a lot more than what you saw with your own eyes and heard with your own ears. I mean, Biden was literally face planting on stages, falling off bicycles, endless verbal gaffes, policy announcements that had to be immediately reversed because they were completely outlandish. And so, you were punished if you talked about that. I mean, it was a fierce battle to preserve Biden and protect him against any inquiry. And the press went along with it. I mean, they're going to be explaining this for years and years to come. When we get to 2028, I don't think the people that were fierce defenders of Joe Biden are going to be cut any slack. I think they're still gonna have to be explaining away why they didn't care or what they did. Now, we may not get the kind of stuff that came out in Watergate. I mean, you remember what Watergate is criminality. There were 65 cases brought in the district and the prosecutors won 63 of them. 24 members of President Nixon's White House staff went to jail. But a lot of that was trumped up. A lot of that was blown out of proportion because of lawfare. We'll see what happens with Bidengate. Take auto pen. You know, you think, well, somebody shoved it in the auto pen. We saw what happened. But somebody had to draft what was being signed. Where did the orders come from? How did they trace through on ending up in front of the auto pen? All of that is still to be explored.

There's no I agree I agree. I think there's a long way to run on this. I think a lot more could come out.

Let me bring in Johanna. I mean as with Watergate, the real scandal of Bidengate is the cover up, isn't it really? It was going on. Biden was clearly losing it cognitively. But it was the collective cover up around him to prevent the truth about his cognitive abilities and sharpness that was the real scandal. A bit like with Watergate and the actual cover up became the much bigger scandal than the actual crime itself. What do you make of it? You also worked with President Obama. What do you think?

And I worked with a lot of the people who worked for Biden. And I remember it was right after 2022, Biden thought that that was a victory for him and he was going to run again. And it was early 2023. I saw Ben LaBolt who was the communications director and I said are we really going to play weekend at Bernie's here? Like I don't want to I want a candidate who can defend Democrats and he was like well you know you have a couple weeks the president is deciding who would you put up and I said Mark Kelly. I said a whole host of names. So there were a lot of us who were concerned. I remember President Obama, we had a big reunion during this time frame and all of us were talking about how we didn't want Biden to run again. I do not believe this was a cover up and I actually think that is a media created scandal now because Jake Tapper wants to sell books. So I grew up in Galesburg, Illinois. I came of age during the Clinton impeachment. I have watched the media attention go to scandal after scandal while we lost jobs, we lost Maytag, our education suffered. We had healthcare prices skyrocketing and people losing their house because of healthcare. And we are distracted by some fake cover up. I read the whole book. I wanted to know what did Jake Tapper find in this cover up. And honestly, it was all out there the entire time. He should have covered it then. Lots of people should have covered it then, sure. But here we've got a situation where we're still talking about it. I mean, in California, we've got a huge gubernatorial race for the person who's going to be in charge of the fourth largest economy in the world, and people are asking these gubernatorial candidates, what do they make of the Biden cover up? I want to know what they're going to do for my son's education. And I am tired of us continuing to play into this when everybody saw it. It was weekend at Bernie's. We shouldn't have done it and now we have Trump. But I want to know what our political leaders are going to do for us.

I am the proud owner of two cats which are named after two Arsenal football legends. And like their owner, they are extremely demanding. How fortunate then that today's show is sponsored by Smalls, which happens to make incredible cat food. This stuff is packed with high quality protein, made with preservative free ingredients, and it's delivered directly to your doorstep. They started this back in 2017 with a few guys cooking good quality cat food at home. Now they've sold millions of cat meals nationwide and the results speak for themselves. 88% of cat owners reported noticeable health improvements after switching. There's a risk-free trial so you have nothing to lose except your cat's patience if you don't order soon. So give your cat the food they deserve. For a limited time only, Uncensored viewers can get 35% off Smalls, plus an extra 50% off your first order by using the promo code peers. That's an additional 50% off when you head to smalls.com and use promo code peers. Again, that's promo code peers for an additional 50% off your first order, plus free shipping at smalls.com.

Let me bring Chuck back in. I want to play you a clip. This is Lara Trump on Fox last night. The background to this is that one of the most egregious moments involving Jake Tapper during the process of everyone trying to deny what was going on with Biden was when he really chewed out Lara Trump for suggesting that it was anything other than a stammer and that he clearly anything else was outrageous. It was interesting. He intimated that he'd apologized to her. She said this on Fox last night. Lara, when did that apology come? If you don't mind sharing with us what did he say?

Yeah, Jake Tapper called me about two months ago actually and he said I have this book coming out and I know everybody's saying that I should apologize to you. I plan whenever the book comes out to go on TV and I will say you were right and I was wrong. And I guess to Jake's credit he did that. Now Laura, I think the overarching thing here though is that the damage is done right. We were so close to something so dangerous happening to this country. I mean, look at what actually happened. Look at the millions of illegal immigrants able to pour in. People are questioning now, you know, who was actually in charge of this country. I guess whoever was in charge of the auto pen. We really have to think about what would have happened if Joe Biden would have been elected. These people would have swept his condition under the rug even more. And Jake Tapper saying that this is like a Watergate level type of situation. Now that he played a role in it, it feels a little bit too late to me. I do appreciate that he did keep his word though and come out and say that I was right.

What was interesting, Chuck, is I don't actually think he said sorry. The wording of what he said to me is the nearest he I watched he hasn't actually I don't think apologized.

No, I don't think he has. Interesting when he said he apologized to Laura. He didn't apologize to the American people. That was your question.

It was because of course the David Frost I've been watching it again recently actually the David Frost Richard Nixon interviews of course only it was after 28 hours of examining and grilling him that he finally got the apology to the people. If I'd been Jake I would have apologized to the American people actually it would have been probably a smart thing to do because he's getting so much flack for this. But this comes in the backdrop also, Chuck, of on page 85 of the book, a longtime Biden aide. He just had to win that he could disappear for four years. He'd only have to show proof of life every once in a while. I found that the most shocking thing I read in the whole book, and there were a lot of candidates, just the fact that a longtime Biden aide basically saying he could be a zombie that we just shook into life with an electric bolt everywhere.

Look, Piers, I'm going to defend some members of the press in this because look, I was somebody that spoke out early questioning whether this was the case. I was interviewing Dean Phillips when other people at the organization that I was at was trying to get him unbooked from shows when he was challenging basically on the entire premise, this guy's not up to the job, right? That was the entire premise of the campaign. But let's remember, I really think that the attempt to make this a media scandal is usually by folks who are trying to promote their own media. This is a scandal of the Democratic Party. And this is where I do think that any Democrat that served in the Biden administration should answer for this, should have to answer for this. And I think it's going to have a hard time answering for this. I mean, I think this is a moment and what it is is you have a party that went three straight elections that they did not let their voters decide who the nominee was. The voters didn't make the decision in 16. Barack Obama did. The voters didn't make the decision in 2020. Jim Clyburn did. The voters didn't make the decision in 2024. Essentially, Joe Biden did by giving the party Kamala Harris. So this is a party that had leadership atrophy and at the same time those that were sort of almost behaving like the old Soviet Union which is you know the leader dies and everybody wants to keep their power and keep their influence. So I do think this scandal should be more laser focused on the Democratic Party. I think the press is again I always look at the criticism of the press here through the person that's making the criticism and I think in some ways there's an eagerness to blame the press without looking at actual who should be blamed here and it's the leadership and frankly the members of the Biden administration and the leadership of the Democratic Party who they're the ones that lied. Look at the end of the day no journalist is as good as their sources. The end of the day, the Democratic Party lied to the American people. The leaders of the party lied to the American people, and that's where this scandal should be centered.

Yeah, I largely don't disagree with you. I kind of think the bigger villains are the people in the White House who obviously knew for a fact what was actually going on with Biden. I do think the media are culpable, too. And I do think if it had been Trump, there would have been an absolute frenzy to get to the bottom of any cognitive issues if he was face planting.

Is there a frenzy now though, Piers? We've got a president. If I told you a president doesn't sleep at night and instead tweets crazy stuff in the middle of the night, would you wonder if there was cognitive decline? Which is about, are they correctly covering this guy's manic behavior? Because his behavior in office well okay so I would say questionable question don't all talk at once I would say to that I've known Trump 20 years and he's behaved in this kind of way for the entire time I've known him in various he used to behave like that I heard that defense of Biden Piers I've known Biden 20 years he's always been misspeaking and stuff so I'm just saying well I would say the difference I'm not going to go with these guys here's the difference Chuck I would say is that Trump makes himself always available. He's always doing two-hour rally speeches. He's doing endless huddles with the press, endless interviews. He's making himself crazy.

Does that make it better? I think it's a different kind of thing. You could say that Trump's a bit crazy, but I don't think you see evidence of cognitive decline. There's not a lot of difference between Trump now than there was first time round in 2016-17. To me watching him. I just think he's the same guy.

Let me bring in Jefferson. You know, when it comes to the point that Johanna made there. I think everyone, of course, everyone in the Democrat party would love to move on, but they should be held accountable for this. I do think it's absolutely obscene that you have people who were close to Biden, who were aides of the president of the United States who literally said he only had to show proof of life every once in a while just to get over the line. I do think that's genuinely scandalous.

You know, I agree with Chuck. This is a scandal of the Democratic Party. And I think that, you know, this Obama Biden cadre is now going to be purged from the leadership of the party because they are discredited by this. It's too many people who didn't know. As for, you know, criticism of the press, you know, when Jake Tapper says this is a bigger scandal than Watergate, I think he knows how to sell books to the conservative press and that, you know, people will eat that up. So that's just to me that's more media promotion. The corruption of the Democratic Party though, the gerontocracy and the arrogance of power that it bred that's the scandal and that's the downfall of this current leadership of the Democratic Party. So I see the scandal more as a party scandal and it reflects very poorly on the press but this is not a matter of power today and that's very much to the point that you made. This is a distraction if we're talking about scandals and in the dimensions of criminality, moral corruption and financial corruption we compare Bidengate to what's going on with the president. You know, criminality, deportations without due process by unidentified law enforcement. You know, there's no But I could flip that in Biden.

Yeah, but Jefferson, I could flip that round. If I was playing devil's advocate to that, I'd say, well, what is worse, right? A few people slipping through the net on the deportations when the number of illegal immigrants coming over the southern border plummeted by 96% or Biden allowing apparently up to 10 million people to go over that border illegally in four years. What is worse for the American people would be my response to that? I mean, you can play these both ways, can't you?

No, I mean the absence of due process isn't some minor detail. That's a fundamental part of democracy and when you have a president saying that he can flout that you know that is scandalous and so you know that's the criminality. So if we're comparing scandals and then you know the financial corruption that's going on, Chuck's point about the crypto scam that is being mounted by the White House, you know, who knows how it's going to end and maybe it will end in disaster, but when we see these kinds of things going on, we need to keep What about what about let me well let me ask you about that.

Well, on financial matters again because Jeff, and I'll come to you in a moment, but you know, we've talked about this being an open-ended scandal at the moment. We've never really got to the bottom of what was going on with Hunter Biden landing a million a year job at a Ukrainian energy company with zero experience when his father is vice president with specific responsibility for Ukraine. That to me smacks of financial corruption. So I think there's a lot of that stuff and we've already had, of course, we've had retrospective pardons put out by Biden to protect them from any more investigations into that that may lead to criminal charges. That again to me stinks to high heaven. So I'm not here to defend either side particularly. I'm just saying that you could look at it in a different way if you're on the other side.

Right. But lots of journalists have access to Hunter Biden's laptop and you know whatever the debate about whether the propriety of that the legitimacy of that as a political issue you know what is the story that came out of that you know basically I've never heard any good reporting from reporters who have access to that laptop that suggests anything larger than the very familiar phenomenon of children of politicians getting you know seats on boards because they have access. Did it lead to some larger financial corruption? It's entirely possible, but I've never seen reporting on that. And a lot of reporters have seen that laptop. So, okay, I would put that in. Hunter was corrupt.

I just want to like Hunter was corrupt. All of us knew Hunter was corrupt. We were seeing him go to a strip club. We were seeing him father a child out of wedlock. We were seeing him date his dead brother's spouse. I mean, Hunter is corrupt. We did. The Democratic Party was held accountable. Chuck, I just have to say we lost the presidency. We lost the House. We lost the Senate. The Democratic Party has been held accountable. Now, we need to absolutely tell the truth. But also, journalists have to cover the truth. And I would say like this teeing around about was Hunter corrupt. Hunter was corrupt the whole time. Who else is corrupt? Donald Trump's sons who are selling access to the president. And we are if we want to cover that, I would love to. I would love to actually talk about that because that is stuff that actually does affect people. But I also want us talking about issues that are not some made up Jake Tapper scandal. I mean, Chuck, we traveled around the world with Jake Tapper and you and I I know that you guys care a lot about the story, but you also care about access. And Jake Tapper has done this multiple times where he has done whatever he can to get access. So now he's kissing up to the right-wing media because he wants access in the

Trump White House. Fine. Sure. But we are missing all the stories that actually affect people. Corruption, absolutely cover it. But also the 1,000-plus page bill that the House Republicans just passed that will actually affect people in Galesburg, Illinois. And that's what's going to matter this next election. My point is, Chuck, we had an election and we lost.

Yes, it is. Jeff, you'll be pleased to know I'm going to end with you to give an overview here about who do you think history will be kinder to. You can respond to what you've just heard first, but then I want to ask you just on a big picture. Who do you think history will judge more harshly, Biden or Nixon?

Well, let me start with a rebuttal first if I could because I'm in agreement with you. I think the members of Biden's immediate circle are the most culpable, but I think the press is also culpable. They don't get a free pass on this. I think what lots of Americans believe if this were to happen again, same circumstances, the press would do the same thing they did, they wouldn't look to find scandal amongst their favorites because they don't like what they see. Now go forward. New administration, new coterie of aides. They're going to do anything, lie, cheat, steal to protect their jobs. The press is our only hope. Free, vibrant press that are on these stories like a dog on a bone. That's where it failed. You can't fault, I don't think it's criminal. I don't think they can find criminality amongst his aides. We'll see. But everybody's now saying, 'Well, look, the press apologized. They're going to be tougher on Trump. Let's move on.' We aren't going to move on, Piers. There's going to be a Senate Select Committee that's going to look into all this stuff. And it's going to drag for a long time because there's so much more to come out. Now, switch to our end. Nixon versus Biden. It's almost laughable. I mean Nixon is a, both are career politicians but Nixon is an acknowledged expert on foreign affairs but for Watergate he would have gone down as one of our greatest presidents the opening to China, detente with the Soviet Union, reassertion of our interests in the Middle East, ending the Vietnam war. Biden, I'm reminded of Robert Gates' great quote about Biden that he has been on the wrong side of every national security or foreign affairs issue for the past four decades. He's not very bright. He was a compromised candidate and we lost because of it. We've lost huge amounts of ground. There's new competition for the worst modern president and it remains between Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden. I mean, I don't think anybody, Chuck, you can't deny that's what's going to happen.

Oh, I think Biden gets Carterized. I've been using that as a verb. And if you remember, you'll remember this in the 80s and in the 90s really Jimmy Carter was persona non grata, right? It really wasn't until Obama that Carter was sort of welcomed back into the club of the Democratic party but there absolutely was this almost, you know, I mean Bill Clinton did everything he could to say I'm not Jimmy Carter and I could argue his entire '92 campaign was about saying I'm not Jimmy Carter, don't compare me to Jimmy Carter, please don't compare me to Jimmy Carter. We're not nice. We are not nice to outgoing presidents. We did the same thing. That's for sure.

And by the way, although we have to end this really interesting debate by the way. Thank you everyone. But we haven't even got into what might turn out to be one of the biggest parts of his scandal of all which is how as somebody who until January was, well no, yeah he was still president of the United States until January of this year. So literally four months ago. How has he now got advanced aggressive stage 5 prostate cancer that's metastasized to his bones and only had a PSA test to test for prostate cancer in 2014 when he had four years of having the finest medical attention and doctors anyone in the world could possibly have. I don't buy any of that as a sequence of events that they suddenly found out. And that begs the question, when did they know? Did they know from the moment Joe Biden inadvertently blurted out that he had cancer which then got denied in 2022 I think by his doctor. So I think there's a lot of stuff here which we just still don't really have got to the bottom of but now the press is on the case. I mean now, that cancer thing is nobody's going to buy that. But what we have to be sure is we don't all agree to hold hands and move on because it's just not going to happen given.

No, I'm afraid that is, by Johanna, wishful, that is one of the most glorious examples of wishful thinking I think I've ever encountered. When I started listening to doctors again diagnose President Biden on TV, I started laughing because it's just tragic actually that we are not talking about substantive issues and that we're trying to diagnose the president on television. But here we are. By the way, in fairness, I think a lot of reporters struggled with the health. It is easier to see scandal that isn't about somebody's health, and it is a very sensitive topic. I'm not going to sit here and make that an excuse for this, but health is always a little bit tougher to dig in on because, you know, it is such a personal issue in fairness. So I think this is where I hold Jill Biden especially responsible because as the spouse she did have the power to do something that nobody else could do. No political ally.

You know what, I'm glad you said that Jefferson, I was about to say exactly the same thing. I think she has, I've interviewed her once. I got on very well with her. I like her personally very much. But I think the desperation she has shown to try and prop up Joe Biden when the kinder thing, the more humane thing to do as a spouse in that situation would have been to make him stand aside and accept it was over. I just find that incomprehensible. Panel, lady, you know what? It just doesn't sit well with anyone, does it? Thank you all very much. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

So Tim Clark, you have been in Dubai, I think I'm right in saying for 40 years. You were here when it was literally pretty much glorified desert. When you look at what's happened in those four decades, I can't think of anyone better placed. The ultimate expat just explaining what's happened here, the scale of it.

I was here in 2008 the last time for a documentary I made for ITV in UK and it was just before the financial crash. It literally it was broadcast as the crash was happening. So I got in just before and it was stunning the transformation that was happening. The scale of ambition and everything was extraordinary. Then came the crash. Everything around the world basically went on hold including here. And to see what's happened since now in 16 years after what happened post the crash has been really breathtaking. But I remember a story I was told. I went up the Burj Khalifa and it hadn't been finished and I was in a rickety old cage going up the side thinking this might be the last trip I ever have. As we got ever more into space in the sky, I was just told this story that Sheikh Mohammed had basically before he would commit to Burj Khalifa had said, 'Okay, I want it to be a standout emblem for Dubai around the world.' And they kept coming back with new plans about the height, new plan. And the height got bigger and bigger and he just kept saying no no eventually don't even come back to my room until you have a proper proposal and eventually the final one was that it was 40% higher at the time than any other building in the world and he authorized it and at that point I understood the scale of the ambition. It was to just be the biggest and best in the world as fast as possible but not just for the sake of that. It was part of the, in my view it was part of the whole operating model of Dubai. So yes, there had to be some standout iconic things, but at the same time, it was a city that was, as I said earlier, diversifying away from fossil fuels, of course, which Dubai didn't have much of, but the understanding that if you're going to get something to be as big and beautiful as you would want, notwithstanding the Burj Khalifa and everything else, this city has to work and reach its own critical mass without too much government intervention. And that's where I talk about the guidance and steer that went on. So today we have if you look at the GDP and the broad basis of the economy in all the multiple segments whether it be media whether it be tech whether it be aviation hospitality banking you name it it's all here that didn't exist then so somebody had to think that this really if I'm going to make it work not only must I put the place on the map geographically with some iconic things but I've also got to make the city come into a kind of as I said critical mass where it's going to be developing wealth not just for the government etc but it has to work for the citizens of the country and in particular Dubai get the people on board with you and they'll work with you and of course this is exactly what's happened.