When she was Vice President, Kamala Harris and her staff carried around a spreadsheet of Republican judges who could swear her in as president if President Biden either died in office or had to step down. "Fight" co-author Amie Parnes joins Glenn to detail just how serious Harris' plan was, as well as the DNC’s plans, since they knew the real mental state of Joe Biden. Amie describes what was hidden from the public by the White House: Biden was forgetful, needed constant makeup to make him look more alive, and much more: "they were clearly concerned about the optics around his age and around his mental acuity." She also details why Biden agreed to his disastrous debate with Donald Trump and why she believes this information is only now getting out.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Amie is with us. Amie Parnes, Hill senior political correspondent. Author of Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House.

Amie, how are you?

AMIE: Hi, Glenn, thank you for having me.

GLENN: You bet!

You know, so can we play the -- just that little collage of all the people that said, this wasn't happening. Do we have that? Can we play that real quick?

VOICE: Joe Biden has vision. He has knowledge. He is a strategic thinker. This is a very sharp president, in terms of his public presentation. He makes a slip of the tongue here or there, what's the deal?

VOICE: You're asking me my personal opinion. He is sharp. He is on top of things. He -- when we have meetings with him, with his staff. He's constantly pushing us. Trying to get more information.

VOICE: I can tell you, this was the day before that interview. I can tell you, he was sharper, than anyone I've spoken to, about --

GLENN: Okay. Stop.

This was happening all the time, Amie. Everyone was saying, how sharp he is.

That was, according to your book, just absolutely not true, and everybody in the White House knew that. Go ahead.

AMIE: Yeah. No.

It's something that we really did you go into in reporting out this book.

And we have questions about what interactions certain people had with the president.
We detail how Eric Swalwell, a congressman from California, for example, attended a congressional picnic with the president, a year before this debate debacle, this disaster.

And, you know, I'll just remind them, President Biden who he was.

And this was someone who they competed against, in the presidential 2020 election. He should know who he is. And there is detail after detail in this book. You know, in your book, you talk about how there were bets being made. How they were looking. Shopping for judges. On who was going to swear her in.

They thought he was going to die before the election.

I mean, did you -- did I get the sense from anyone while you're searching this book, that anyone thought, maybe. This isn't really good for the Constitution?

AMIE: I mean, that's why you're seeing a lot of arrows being thrown in the direction of the former president and his aids.

People are really, really upset about -- they think it's a cover-up. They think that they should have been more candid, even within their own party, about the president's cognitive abilities.

And, you know, Glenn. I -- I covered the president for a long time.

And I tried to get after the story.

And the White House was constantly -- I know my colleagues were as well.

It's not like I -- but the White House would batter us. When we asked questions about his mental acuity and his age. It was a constant, constant battle.

GLENN: But was there anybody that knew, that should have spoken out, I mean, in the press or anything?

I mean, it's one thing to -- it's one thing to speculate.

It's one thing, to I hear rumors.

And if you're shut off from it.

But, you know, in the White House, it seems like, there were quite a few people that knew, this is a disaster!

Who is -- who is running the country, at that point? Who was the president?

AMIE: I mean, this close set of advisers kept him really close. And that's why I think you didn't see him as much.

Right now, President Trump is out there, talking to reporters every day.

I think the press corps wanted Biden to see Biden do similar things. And take a similar media approach. He did not.

And, you know, we detail in the book, there's a fundraiser, where someone, you know, says that these -- he's going to die at the fundraiser.

There are other moments, where, you know, we take you inside bill Murphy's house.

And we detail how he's speaking to just a couple of -- a couple of dozen fundraisers, at a small house. And he was on the floor, to guide him from place to place. He needs a teleprompter. You know, these aren't common things.

GLENN: At a house. At a house.

AMIE: Yes.

And, you know, makeup. This was -- this was another revelation in our book.

Whenever he traveled overseas. He was met with a makeup artist. That was his first order of business. Sometimes he missed meetings because the makeup artist wasn't there to touch him up. There were clearly concerns about the optics around his age and around his mental acuity.

GLENN: You write at one point, that the makeup artist. He goes in, he sits in for the makeup. And he calls it a day. And that was it.

AMIE: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And these were aides talking to us about it. Obviously, they knew about it. They said, at times, he looked really frazzled. He would get out of the limousine. And would look around, and wouldn't know where he was. So, yeah. It's very startling even to people who were telling us these stories.

GLENN: But, you know, it's one thing to be -- it's one thing to go, yeah. That was really weird.

It's another to realize, that is the man, that has to make the decision, you know, for the country, God forbid we're attacked or whatever!

And he's not there.

Was -- was there anyone inside fighting and saying, we have got to alert the American people?

We have to invoke the 25th amendment.

25th, isn't it, Stu?

We've got to invoke the 25th amendment.

This isn't right. The people have put their power in this man.

He is no longer capable of making these decisions.

I think a lot of people would have had respect for that!

Instead, I walk away going, was there no one that cared about the Constitution?

And cared about what could have happened with this guy in charge?

AMIE: No. And I think that's why you're seeing so much fire aimed at his close set of advisors right now, because they could have been more candid.

And, you know, Democrats in general, I think were confused as to his cognitive abilities.

I think the reason why he wanted to do this debate. And his advisers wanted to do this debate, earlier. This disaster born in June last year. Is because they wanted -- they knew that he was losing in the polls. Obviously, they wanted to change the trajectory of the phrase.

And they thought that that was a moment, that could help them. Instead, it brought out, you know -- it displayed everything, for the American public.

GLENN: Wow. So I honestly thought, for the longest time.

They did that. Knowing -- somebody was like, no. Let's put him on the stage. And let's do it now, before things get completely out of hand.

And he's going to be running for reelection.

I -- I really thought they put him on stage that early.

Because I've never seen that happen before in American politics.

Put him on stage that early, so he would be exposed. And everyone would be like, okay. We can't run him.

AMIE: No, and what's fascinating, Glenn, is we take you inside. We open the book, inside Nancy Pelosi's living room. And she's watching the debate alone. She's warned President Biden, at the time. She said, oh, you don't want it to be Trump.

She mentioned it under the guise of, oh, why would you belittle yourself, and appear on stage with him, but she knows.

And Jill Clayburgh, who is also watching the debate alone, in his living room. He's there, he's having a drink and watching it. They're all alone. They're not at the debate watch party together. Because they almost know what is about to happen there. Watching the train wreck unfold, bit by bit, and alone.

GLENN: So what do we do to ensure this -- let me ask it before I ask you that again.

Again. Who was running the country?

AMIE: That's a very good question.

I think, obviously, his -- his close set of advisers had a great big role in that.

You see Ron Klain these days. Trying to distance himself. He's the former chief of staff.
Trying to distance himself from the optics of what was happening.

GLENN: But it's not -- it's really not optics. It is the truth.

AMIE: Yeah.

GLENN: Somebody was making decisions because the president could -- you know, I've -- I was always fascinated in history by Woodrow Wilson.

Edith Wilson ran the White House for a while. It was his own party that came in -- it was the same thing. People were like, rumors.

And they were like, I don't think he's really there.

And he wasn't seen for a long time. So the leadership of the party came. Finally forced the First Lady. And said, because she was the one saying, he's going to run for a third term.

And he said, no. No. No. Or we'll expose ail of this right now. He's not running for a third term.

And, you know, it seems to be the same thing. I'm wondering how many presidents have we had that, you know, nobody seems to really care that the elected official, isn't actually doing what that official is supposed to do.

They're just unelected people making the decisions.

AMIE: And the fact of the matter, Glenn. You see the former president all, but disappear from public view, since leaving office.

And that I think speaks volumes about his state of mind.

GLENN: Was -- was Kamala that in the know.

Which, I mean, if God forbid, something would have happened. Who would have grabbed the football.

Who would have been the one.

AMIE: It would have been Kamala Harris.

You teased this earlier. But her communications director would carry around this spreadsheet of Republican judges.

Because he felt almost like she had to be validated in that moment. And only a Republican judge could really swear her in.

And have that validation, from Republicans. He thought that there was no way, that such a divisive country, and, you know, people would support her.

And so we detail how he came into that role. With the spreadsheet.

He traveled with it.

The DNC had plans.

If things happened to the president.

And we expose all of this for the first time in this book.

GLENN: Can you find anything?

I'm a self-taught historian. But I'm pretty good at it.

I've never seen anything like it, in American history.

Have you?

AMIE: It's pretty rational. It's really unprecedented.

It was really interesting to report out.

You know, I think people have questions about the media. And how we went about reporting this.

And it's -- it's almost like the president needed to leave office for people to actually admit what was actually happening.

GLENN: Why?

AMIE: And tell us stories. That's what's interesting. I think when you cover a president, they're always worried that the White House is going to come down hard on them, and so they're -- they're less prone to want to tell you things.

And then when they leave office, this is when the floodgates open up.

GLENN: Is anybody going to be held accountable for this?

AMIE: I mean, I think right now. The party. I think that's why you're seeing the democratic party scrambling.

First of all, they have to come out and admit what happened here.

And almost look themselves in the mirror, and talk about Joe Biden. The other day, Jake Tapper asked Tim Walz about it. And Tim Walz kind of stepped around the question. I think they need to be very frank about what was happening.

And what they were witnessing. And they don't -- they don't want to do that right now.

GLENN: You know, it's interesting to me.

I just told this story on the air, because people are kicking around, Donald Trump wants to run for a third term.

No. No. That's against the Constitution. And that was put there for a very clear reason. And it wasn't put in there, by the Republicans.

It was put in by the Democrats.

FDR's own party when they saw what had happened to the presidency. It just gained far too much power.

And it's not good for anybody when that happens.

And, you know, here you have -- as soon as FDR died. That's when all the Democrats were like, okay. Okay. We have to make sure that doesn't happen again.

But they were for him, when he was alive.

It seems like the same thing here. That everybody was like, okay.

It's cool.

But is anybody going to step now, and say, this cannot happen ever again?

AMIE: I think that's what has to happen, Glenn.

Somebody has to take responsibility for it.

And no one is.

And I'm curious to see how the Democrats reckon with this.

GLENN: Hmm.

Amie, thank you very much.

I'm glad somebody finally told the story. And got the story.

It is -- if we don't fix this, it's just going to happen again.

And it will happen with the other party.

I mean, it will.

You give people, in power, an inch.

They are going to take a mile.

And this cannot happen. This just cannot happen again.

Amie, thank you so much.

AMIE: Thank you, Glenn.

GLENN: You bet. Amie Parnes. Fight, inside the wildest battle for the White House.