Show Notes
As Biden dead-enders battle with Democrats trying to push the President off of the Democratic ticket, investigative journalist Peter Schweizer says he’s seen enough: “Joe Biden will not be the Democratic nominee,” Schweizer says on the most recent episode of the Drill Down podcast. “He will be forced to step down by the big money.”
Schweizer and co-host Eric Eggers, fresh from guest-hosting Sean Hannity’s radio show, note the pledges of loyalty to Biden from left-wing Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York contrast sharply with rising voices of ten party moderates in Congress, many of them senior members, calling for Biden to step aside. Sen. John Tester (D-MT), who is in a tough re-election fight this Fall, is among those calling for Biden to pack it in.
Biden’s foggy breakdown at the debate on June 28 has also spawned new interest from the press about eight consulting visits from a medical specialist in Parkinson’s Disease to the White House physician beginning last year. Dr. Tom Pitts, a board-certified neurologist, told NBC News on Monday he was confident Biden is displaying symptoms of Parkinson’s despite having never been in the “same room” as the man. “I could have diagnosed him from across the Mall,” Pitts told an interviewer, listing several movement-related “tells” such as loss of arm swing, trouble turning, and Biden’s noticeably softened voice.
The president’s family members, meanwhile, are circling the wagons around the 81-year-old patriarch. Is that just natural family protectiveness, or something else – such as financial incentive?
Schweizer, Eggers, and the team at the Government Accountability Institute have been reporting on Biden family business matters since publishing the 2018 bestseller Secret Empires and the follow-up reporting in 2020 called Profiles in Corruption, both of which documented Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling activities as well as those of the president’s brothers, James and Frank, who have made money in various ways by offering their closeness to the president as their sole “product.”
Hunter Biden, some press reports say, is now sitting in on the president’s meetings.
The family’s various business activities thrived while Joe was Vice President under President Barack Obama, and continued after he left office, even after the publication of Secret Empires and press attention to Hunter Biden’s infamous “laptop” made the story unavoidable.
Frank Biden actually used the current White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, to make business introductions for a healthcare-related business he was pitching, Schweizer said, while brother James Biden is listed as a “consultant” to a white-shoe Florda law firm called Berman & Associates, despite having no legal education whatsoever.
The president’s wife, Jill, appears to enjoy the perks of being First Lady, and her rallying to her husband’s defense has dredged up comparisons to Edith Wilson, the wife of President Woodrow Wilson, whose 1919 stroke left him physically and perhaps intellectually incapacitated for the last two years of his term. Edith Wilson, historians agree, ran her husband’s administration following the strokes. Schweizer notes that Wilson administration operatives actually planned to run him for a third term, a plan that was stopped after the White House physician at the time, Dr. Cary Grayson, went to party bigwigs and told them the president was “a vegetable,” Schweizer explained.
Jill Biden’s appetite for the pomp of office was revealed in 2022 when a reporter learned that the Bidens asked the Marine Corps Band to write “walk-up” music for her. The resulting ditty, called “Fanfare for the First Lady,” was performed at several official White House functions but quickly discontinued after the story came out.
For Schweizer, the late-stage Biden drama comes as no shock, but he is surprised the press has feigned ignorance for so long. “If [president] Trump had visits from a Parkinson’s specialist, they would have been all over it,” he said. “The press is also a big loser here.”
But, as Schweizer points out, money will ultimately matter in another way. Donations to the Biden campaign have stalled, and big donors in particular have begun to make public statements against Biden’s continued campaigning. “The big money people jumping ship shows this is a real problem,” Schweizer concluded.