April 11, 2025 • 7 mins
Chris Whipple talks to Mendte in the Morning about his book, and what went into the Democrats’ thinking during the last election cycle.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chris Whipple is the author of the book Uncharted, How
Trump beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the wildest
campaign in History. It's available now, by the way, and
it just hit number four on Amazon's bestseller list. Chris Whipple,
thanks for joining us this morning.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey, good to be with you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Well, this is amazing. The stuff you have in your
book is unreal and just amazing that you were able
to get all this info. So let's talk about some
of the details of Biden's disastrous debate prep session. First
off at Camp David. So one source in your books
said the President was just totally out of it, disengaged,
and be fuddled to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, and you know, it's an incredible, untold story, hard
to believe, right, because we all lived through that campaign.
I thought we knew it all. But I was really
stunned when Ron Klain, Joe Biden's first White House chief
of staff, who was in charge of his debate prep,
told me that when they arrived at Camp David, he
was shocked by how out of it Joe Biden was exhausted.
(01:04):
He didn't understand the back and forth between his campaign
and Trump. He didn't really know what he wanted to
say about his second term plans. At one point he
wandered out of Aspen Lodge, the presidential cabin and walked
out to the pool, sank into a lounge chair and
fell sound asleep. He thought he was obsessed with foreign leaders,
(01:26):
and he kept talking about, how you know, Emmanuel McCrone
of France and Olaf Schultz. They think they think I'm
doing a great job. I must be a great president.
And so the book is really the extraordinary thing about
this is the extent to which Biden's inner circle were
really in a kind of fog of delusion and denial.
(01:50):
I mean they decided that, I mean a number of
them thought he could run for reelection, were behind him
being remaining as the nominee, in effect sort of believing
what they wanted to believe instead of their lying eyes.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
At what point, at what point did they officially put
word out to everybody to have that same message that no,
he's sharp as attack, there's no mental decline, because it
almost sounded stage. So many members of the legacy media
saying basically the same thing, or representatives of Biden's camp
saying the same thing, Oh, sharp as attack is. This
(02:25):
is the version of Biden that you want. This is
how it's like, what are you going to believe as
you said me or your own lieon eyes? At what
point did they not realize that, no, the man can't
even say his name.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well, you know, it was the whole thing. There wasn't
a single moment when the word went out. But I'll
give you an example of just how deep in denial
the inner circle was when Joe Biden had that moment,
you know, twelve minutes into the debate, when he looked
as though he didn't know where he was, couldn't really
complete his sentence, and finally said, what we finally beat
(02:58):
medicare you know? I thought maybe he was having a stroke,
but Biden's inner circle thought he was. He won the debate.
I kid you not. You know what Anita had done.
One of his senior advisers was watching a so called
dial group of of voters and undecided voters, a focus
(03:20):
grip where you turn a dial up or down to
register how do you feel? Anyway? Toward the end of
the debate, when Trump was just saying his usual, uh,
sometimes outrageous things, the dials were pointing down and done thought, well,
we came ahead. It was just astonishing the extent to
which they all bought into a number of them bought
(03:40):
into the notion that this guy could somehow win the election. Went.
Anybody who's ever had to take the car keys away
from you know, a grandfather would have known better.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Unreal, Well, what would you say this specific thing was
that caused Joe Biden feeld that former President Barack Obama
betrayed him.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
It's this is another really fascinating story. And that relationship
between Biden and Obama is uh, is really amazing. I mean,
on the one hand, they had this bond when Bo
Biden was dying, uh, Barack Obama took Biden under his wing.
But as as in those final days that I write about,
(04:23):
when Biden went to that with his beach house in
Rehobeth and the walls were closing in, one of his
best friends told me that the thing that really bothered
him more than anything was that Barack Obama had never
picked up the phone and called him and said, hey, Joe,
you know listen, don't you you know what what's going
(04:45):
on here? Are you sure you're up to this? That
phone call never happened instead. In Biden's view, he was
working behind the scenes to force him out, and.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Could very well have been the case as it sort
of played out. Chris Whipple is the author of Charted
How Trump beat Biden, Harris and the Odds in the
Wildest campaign in History. It is available now and you
just hit number four on the bestseller list on Amazon,
which is pretty darn good. We have a couple of
minutes left here. I said, I don't want to lose you.
I just want to remind everybody that the book is available.
(05:15):
You could be clicking Amazon right now. Why would you
say Harrison Harris rather failed to effectively answer Trump's infamous
trans ad.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Well, that's a great story, I mean, really interesting. If
I spoke to a former you know, it was a
devastating ad. Yeah, may recall and it ended with that
tagline She's for they them, Trump is for you. Well
it just sat there, kind of like the devastating swift
(05:48):
boat Veterans for Truth against John Kerry back in two
thousand and four. There was a feeling that Carrie's failure
to answer that ad sank his campaign. People thought the
same thing about the trand against Harris and she didn't
answer it. And the truth is that they tried four
or five different possible ads to answer it, and they
(06:10):
finally decided it's unanswerable, so they just let it lie. Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Sometimes leave well enough alone. And we got about thirty
seconds left. What did Vice President Harris say to President
Trump during her concession phone call?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
That's an amazing and strange call. I mean, she said
to him pointedly, will you be a president for all Americans?
Trump didn't really answer it, and he, in fact, he
was a weirdly cordial and he was saying, you know,
you ran a great campaign. You were a tough cookie.
(06:46):
And that Doug Man, I love that guy.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
A fascinating Once again, Chris Whipple, author of Uncharted, How
Trump beat Biden, Harris and the odds in the wireless
campaign in history. We thank you so much for joining
us this morning.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Thanks for having me. My pleasure,
Chris Whipple is the author of the book Uncharted, How
Trump beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the wildest
campaign in History. It's available now, by the way, and
it just hit number four on Amazon's bestseller list. Chris Whipple,
thanks for joining us this morning.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey, good to be with you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Well, this is amazing. The stuff you have in your
book is unreal and just amazing that you were able
to get all this info. So let's talk about some
of the details of Biden's disastrous debate prep session. First
off at Camp David. So one source in your books
said the President was just totally out of it, disengaged,
and be fuddled to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, and you know, it's an incredible, untold story, hard
to believe, right, because we all lived through that campaign.
I thought we knew it all. But I was really
stunned when Ron Klain, Joe Biden's first White House chief
of staff, who was in charge of his debate prep,
told me that when they arrived at Camp David, he
was shocked by how out of it Joe Biden was exhausted.
(01:04):
He didn't understand the back and forth between his campaign
and Trump. He didn't really know what he wanted to
say about his second term plans. At one point he
wandered out of Aspen Lodge, the presidential cabin and walked
out to the pool, sank into a lounge chair and
fell sound asleep. He thought he was obsessed with foreign leaders,
(01:26):
and he kept talking about, how you know, Emmanuel McCrone
of France and Olaf Schultz. They think they think I'm
doing a great job. I must be a great president.
And so the book is really the extraordinary thing about
this is the extent to which Biden's inner circle were
really in a kind of fog of delusion and denial.
(01:50):
I mean they decided that, I mean a number of
them thought he could run for reelection, were behind him
being remaining as the nominee, in effect sort of believing
what they wanted to believe instead of their lying eyes.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
At what point, at what point did they officially put
word out to everybody to have that same message that no,
he's sharp as attack, there's no mental decline, because it
almost sounded stage. So many members of the legacy media
saying basically the same thing, or representatives of Biden's camp
saying the same thing, Oh, sharp as attack is. This
(02:25):
is the version of Biden that you want. This is
how it's like, what are you going to believe as
you said me or your own lieon eyes? At what
point did they not realize that, no, the man can't
even say his name.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well, you know, it was the whole thing. There wasn't
a single moment when the word went out. But I'll
give you an example of just how deep in denial
the inner circle was when Joe Biden had that moment,
you know, twelve minutes into the debate, when he looked
as though he didn't know where he was, couldn't really
complete his sentence, and finally said, what we finally beat
(02:58):
medicare you know? I thought maybe he was having a stroke,
but Biden's inner circle thought he was. He won the debate.
I kid you not. You know what Anita had done.
One of his senior advisers was watching a so called
dial group of of voters and undecided voters, a focus
(03:20):
grip where you turn a dial up or down to
register how do you feel? Anyway? Toward the end of
the debate, when Trump was just saying his usual, uh,
sometimes outrageous things, the dials were pointing down and done thought, well,
we came ahead. It was just astonishing the extent to
which they all bought into a number of them bought
(03:40):
into the notion that this guy could somehow win the election. Went.
Anybody who's ever had to take the car keys away
from you know, a grandfather would have known better.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Unreal, Well, what would you say this specific thing was
that caused Joe Biden feeld that former President Barack Obama
betrayed him.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
It's this is another really fascinating story. And that relationship
between Biden and Obama is uh, is really amazing. I mean,
on the one hand, they had this bond when Bo
Biden was dying, uh, Barack Obama took Biden under his wing.
But as as in those final days that I write about,
(04:23):
when Biden went to that with his beach house in
Rehobeth and the walls were closing in, one of his
best friends told me that the thing that really bothered
him more than anything was that Barack Obama had never
picked up the phone and called him and said, hey, Joe,
you know listen, don't you you know what what's going
(04:45):
on here? Are you sure you're up to this? That
phone call never happened instead. In Biden's view, he was
working behind the scenes to force him out, and.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Could very well have been the case as it sort
of played out. Chris Whipple is the author of Charted
How Trump beat Biden, Harris and the Odds in the
Wildest campaign in History. It is available now and you
just hit number four on the bestseller list on Amazon,
which is pretty darn good. We have a couple of
minutes left here. I said, I don't want to lose you.
I just want to remind everybody that the book is available.
(05:15):
You could be clicking Amazon right now. Why would you
say Harrison Harris rather failed to effectively answer Trump's infamous
trans ad.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Well, that's a great story, I mean, really interesting. If
I spoke to a former you know, it was a
devastating ad. Yeah, may recall and it ended with that
tagline She's for they them, Trump is for you. Well
it just sat there, kind of like the devastating swift
(05:48):
boat Veterans for Truth against John Kerry back in two
thousand and four. There was a feeling that Carrie's failure
to answer that ad sank his campaign. People thought the
same thing about the trand against Harris and she didn't
answer it. And the truth is that they tried four
or five different possible ads to answer it, and they
(06:10):
finally decided it's unanswerable, so they just let it lie. Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Sometimes leave well enough alone. And we got about thirty
seconds left. What did Vice President Harris say to President
Trump during her concession phone call?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
That's an amazing and strange call. I mean, she said
to him pointedly, will you be a president for all Americans?
Trump didn't really answer it, and he, in fact, he
was a weirdly cordial and he was saying, you know,
you ran a great campaign. You were a tough cookie.
(06:46):
And that Doug Man, I love that guy.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
A fascinating Once again, Chris Whipple, author of Uncharted, How
Trump beat Biden, Harris and the odds in the wireless
campaign in history. We thank you so much for joining
us this morning.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Thanks for having me. My pleasure,
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