Public calls for Joe Biden to step aside as the Democratic nominee have all but subsided in the wake of the assassination attempt against Donald Trump on Saturday. But a steady stream of leaks indicate there is still plenty of pressure being put on the president behind the scenes.
Perhaps the most stunning report came from the hosts of Ruthless – John Ashbrook, Michael Duncan, Josh Holmes, and Comfortably Smug – who broke the news that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race during a private meeting in Delaware over the weekend.
On Wednesday’s show, the guys joined Megyn to discuss their reporting and why the story is the “worst kept secret” at the Republican National Convention this week.
The Report
While it was known that Schumer paid Biden a visit at his Rehoboth Beach home on Saturday, there has been little reporting about the substance of the sit down. “I sat with President Biden this afternoon in Delaware; we had a good meeting,” Schumer said in a statement.
At the time, Axios reported that was the first known face-to-face meeting between the two men since the 81 year old’s debate debacle nearly three weeks ago. And the outlet noted Schumer’s “good meeting” rhetoric was “noticeably cooler” than his previous “I’m for Joe” remarks.
Perhaps that is because Schumer was there to encourage the president to step aside as the Democrat nominee for president. While the Ruthless hosts reported the news on their show on Tuesday, they said it is an open secret at this point.
“One of the things we all know about the Washington media is that they don’t report everything they know, but often there are rumors that circulate among them that they cannot put in the newspaper because they don’t want to burn their bosses, their Democrat sources,” Ashbrook explained. “What we understand is that Chuck Schumer drove himself or was driven to Delaware to have a personal one-on-one meeting with Joe Biden to make his appeal that Biden should not be the nominee. They’re trying to steal the nomination from this old man.”
The message was apparently not well received. “Knowing Schumer… I’m sure that he had poll numbers and all kinds of things indicating it was a huge problem for the party down ballot,” Holmes said. “So, I think he took advantage of it and had this conversation but, ultimately, didn’t get the answer that he wanted.”
In Holmes’ view, the “good meeting” statement from Schumer was a tell that things didn’t go his way. “When he came out of the meeting, he said ‘good meeting,’ which, to me, immediately was a huge sign,” he said. “If you are meeting with the nominee of your party 100 days before an election and you don’t say, ‘I fully support Joe Biden, our conference supports him, and we can’t wait to vote for him in November’… there is something else that happened and that is what we found.”
‘Worst Kept Secret’
As it turns out, the Ruthless crew isn’t the one with the scoop. “When we got to Milwaukee, it’s the worst kept secret,” Holmes noted. “Every single journalist… knows exactly what happened. But they asked Chuck Schumer, and it’s a one-on-one meeting, and he denies it, so they’re not reporting it.”
Megyn said there is no reason for the media to sit on this. “Obviously, [Schumer has] spoken and so has Biden to others and that is how these reporters get this,” she said. “They always report things that are not… from the direct source, so this is kind of sketchy to me.”
For what it’s worth, Comfortably Smug said he noticed a new follower on X after the podcast with the report was released. “I checked my Twitter after we put it out there and Schumer’s press secretary started following me,” he said. “[I guess he thought], ‘got keep an eye on these guys because somehow they hear it.'”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Ruthless by tuning in to episode 840 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.