Fact Check 11: The June 2024 Trump-Biden debate was held three months before any televised presidential debate in US history: Why?

What was presented to us as a public service was, in fact, a freakish anomaly in the history of televised presidential debates. It was quickly followed by another freakish anomaly: a soft coup.

Oct 17, 2024

Preface: See 2024 Fact Check: Introduction and link-list

Source

University of California-Santa Barbara, The American Presidency Project: Presidential Candidates Debates (1960-2024)

Briefly, here is a graphical depiction of presidential debates from 1960-2022:

In 2024, a complete anomaly in US history occurred: the first presidential debate was held three months early:

Why did this happen?

And how does it relate to the fact that less than one month later, President Biden dropped out of the race — after insisting for weeks that there’s nothing wrong with him, which Vice-President Harris, his cabinet and closest allies and friends affirmed in endless media appearances?

That requires a deeper discussion, which I’ve attempted to provide, below. It is by no means comprehensive, but given the very narrow slices of time to which I could devote to this uncompensated, self-directed effort, it is the best I could do.

- Jon Sutz, October 16, 2024

Analysis

In order to properly analyze the freakish anomaly that occurred in 2024 presidential debates, we must first establish a common understanding of the basic aspects of American presidential nomination and debate processes, procedures, and timelines.

A brief overview of how candidates for the presidency become the official nominees of their parties

The first phase of the presidential election is called the primaries, in which all declared candidates for each party’s nomination convene in various settings, where they debate the issues. The primaries begin in the second half of the year preceding the election, and continue into the spring of the election year. At various points during the primary period, party delagetes in the states declare for which candidate they support. Then, in the summer and early fall, each party holds its convention, at which its delegates from all US states cast ballots to officially elect their nominee for president.

Historically, when a sitting president is challenged for the nomination by one or more candidates within his own party, he chooses to not participate in the primary debates, on the assumption that his party’s delegates will want to see him re-elected.

This is what happened in 2023-24. President Biden chose to not participate in any debate, and when the delegates began casting their ballots in early 2024, he was the overwhelming favorite.

By March 12, 2024, the Democratic Party announced that President Biden had received enough delegate votes to make him its official nominee for re-election

As per NPR:

Trump and Biden clinch 2024 presidential nominations, NPR, March 12, 2024. Excerpt:

The general election rematch between former President Donald Trump and President Biden is now official.
Both men have now secured the required delegates to be their respective party's nominee.
Biden and Trump won nearly every contest in the presidential nominating calendar so far but the important threshold of winning a majority of delegates to the party conventions this summer has finally been met.

The nominating conventions occur during the summer and early fall

The next stage of electing a president occurs at each party’s national convention, during which each state’s delegates cast their ballots in one setting, at the same time, which is almost invariably a formality, as the nominee has already been legally selected, months earlier. Often, to unify the party, states whose delegates voted for another candidate in the primaries, switch to supporting the official nominee.

Then, on the last night of the convention, after the votes are tabulated, the winning candidate appears to accept the nomination, and make a speech.

The Democratic Party’s convention took place on August 19–22 in Chicago, IL.

Televised presidential nominee debates start 5-6 weeks before the election

After the conventions, each party’s official nominee does two things: (1) Going on the campaign trail, and (2) Preparing to debate the other official nominee/s for the presidency.

This is a graphic depiction of the history of televised US presidential debates, from 1960-2020 (there were no TV debates in 1964, 1968 or 1972). Note that the first debates occurred in either late September, or early October, and continued until mid/late October:

Election Day: The American people vote for which president they want

Finally, eligible American citizens cast their ballots for the nominee they want to become president, or in the case of an incumbent, to continue serving as the president.

America’s elections used to be the envy, and the marvel of the free world, especially to those who live under tyranny, in nations where “leaders” are determined — and deposed — by secret councils, or through brute force.

America was a beacon of inspiration, demonstrating what is possible when human beings’ natural right to elect their own leaders is recognized, and legally protected, through fair, open, accountable and rigidly protected voting mechanisms.

This is what should have happened in 2024.

Instead, we witnessed America’s first soft coup.

The preface to the coup: Growing documentation of President Biden’s mental and physical deterioration — which was ignored or obfuscated by the mainstream US “news” media

This is a subject that requires far greater research and analysis to comprehensively document, but for now, here is a showcase of videos demonstrating the mental and physical disintegration of the President of the United States of America.

The two primary news organizations that compiled and published video documentation of this were Fox News and the Washington Free Beacon, which created the “Biden’s Senior Moments of the Week” series on YouTube. Here’s a sampling, from February 24, 2023:

And here was a segment from “Hannity” from more than a year earlier, on April 19, 2022:

Fast-forwarding to April 18, 2024 — five weeks after Biden won the Democratic nomination — Sky News Australia produced and broadcast this 9-minute sampling of Biden’s growing cognitive and physical disintegration:

Seven weeks later, on June 11, 2024, Sky News Australia struck again, with this follow-up video of Biden’s lack of mental fitness:

If you are neither a Fox News watcher, and don’t consume Australian news media, did you ever see these videos prior to this writing (October 16, 2024)?

Chances are you have not — because the mainstream US “news” media effectively quarantined such videos, and refused to air them. Some are tempted to say, “But, Fox News is #1!!! Everyone who watches it saw these videos?” Fox News is the top cable news organization, but only has roughly 10% of the entire US TV news market. The vast majority of the rest of the “news” media refused to

On the rare occasion when a member of the US MSM was asked about them in a formal or informal setting, they tried to deflect, claiming that President Biden is still functioning fine; “Sharp as a tack!,” they insisted. They, unlike us, see him at the White House and Washington, DC events, and with Orwellian uniformity, they insisted he was perfectly fine. Some, in the case of the Associated Press on July 3, 2024, gave us another “Fiery but mostly peaceful protests” moment:

In effect, we were asked: “What are you going to believe — your lying eyes, or I, who’s paid millions of dollars, enabled by the biggest brand name corporate advertisers in America?”

I’m unaware of any incident in American history in which effectively the entirety of what Elon Musk has termed the “legacy media” acted as one, to shield us from the gravest domestic national security threat imaginable: A president who is obviously in a state of mental disintegration, and a refusal to ask, on our behalf, a simple question:

Who is actually running the executive branch of our federal government?

The coup is launched: Colluding with CNN to schedule the first presidential debate three months before one had ever been held in US history

From out of the blue, and with very little advance notice, Americans were told that President Biden would debate former president Trump on CNN, on June 27 — three months before any televised presidential debate in US history:

It was promoted to us as a public service:

Biden and Trump agree to presidential debates on June 27 and Sept. 10, CBS News, May 15, 2024
The Biden-Trump debate in June sets the stage for an upset at the conventions, The Hill, May 21, 2024
Biden-Trump 2024 presidential debate: What to know and how to watch, NBC10 Philadelphia, June 20, 2024

A few questions:

Who within the Democratic Party reached out to CNN to suggest such an early debate? Given all the above, it is reasonable to assume that they were the most powerful people within the Democratic Party, and its largest donors.

What was the purpose in scheduling such a freakishly early debate? I believe the evidence will show that it was to expose Biden’s actual cognitive condition to the world, while there was still time for these unelected, behind-the-scenes power brokers to unlawfully replace him as the nominee.

Why did CNN agree to it? Only CNN can answer for its increasingly reprehensible, hyper-partisan actions. From my observations and analysis, I speculate that they were in agreement with the need to create a situation in which Biden could gracefully exit the race, after his true cognitive condition was revealed to the world.

Considering the fact that of American journalists who make monetary donations to political campaigns, 96% of this cash goes to Democrats, and CNN’s long-documented bias toward Democrats and leftist causes, this collaboration with Democratic Party’s unnamed power-bosses cannot come as much of a surprise.

Why did former president Trump agree to such an early debate? I’ve been wondering about this myself, and have no answer.

Of course, the debate was a disaster for Biden, and revealed to the world that America’s chief executive is cognitively impaired to a substantial extent, and should no longer be president. A sampling:

The coup forced Biden out of the race, after his and Harris’s consistent denials that there was anything wrong with him

For weeks after the debate, Biden insisted he is not dropping out of the race:

Biden expands effort to tamp down calls to step aside after Trump debate, NBC News, July 3, 2024
Biden, campaigning in Wisconsin, defies calls to drop out: "Completely ruling that out," CBS News, July 6, 2024
Biden to Democrats: I'm not dropping out of 2024 race, USA Today, July 8, 2024
Biden won't drop out, campaign insists in new memo, CNBC, July 19, 2024
Joe Biden vows to run as more Democrats ask him to drop out, BBC, July 19, 2024

Finally, on July 21, after weeks of fervent denials by Biden, Harris and the Democratic Party that he has any cognitive impairments, that lasted until two days earlier, he withdrew from the race:

President Joe Biden drops out of 2024 presidential race, NBC News, July 21, 2024. Excerpt (emphasis added):

President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he will end his presidential re-election campaign, bringing an abrupt and humbling conclusion to his half-century-long political career and scrambling the race for the White House less than four months before Election Day.
Biden, 81, could not reverse growing sentiment within his party that he was too frail to serve and destined to lose to Donald Trump in November. He backed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the Democratic nominee.

The coup installed Vice President Harris as the new “official” Democratic Party nominee ten days later — even though she never won a single delegate vote

On August 2, 2024 — only 10 days after Biden withdrew — it was announced that Harris had somehow, magically received enough delegate support to replace him as the Democratic nominee:

Harris has secured enough Democratic delegate votes to become their party's nominee, chair says, AP, August 2, 2024. Excerpt:

Vice President Kamala Harris has secured enough votes from delegates to become her party’s nominee for president, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said Friday.
The announcement was made before the online voting process ends on Monday, reflecting the breakneck speed of a campaign that is eager to maintain momentum after President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid and endorsed Harris as his successor less than two weeks ago.

How did this happen? I am not a Washington, DC “insider,” but I know enough to realize that none of this could have happened if the machinery to do it were not put in place long ago.

DC insiders I’ve talked to affirm this, and more: that had President Trump been so obviously unfit, cognitively, to continue serving, even after becoming the official nominee, and the Republican Party attempted to slide Vice-President Pence into the race, in his place:

The Democrats and their enablers in the MSM would instantly begin screaming to the heavens about how this is an illegitimate late-stage replacement of the nominee, that bypassed the democratic process
The MSM would begin airing wall-to-wall, day-after-day specials on this (legitimate) constitutional crisis, and the (legitimate) threat to democracy it poses
Together, along with their Hollywood allies, they would all be asking (legitimately), if Trump is so cognitively deficient to drop out of the race, then who is (and has been) actually running the White House?

Given the above primer of America’s electoral processes and legalities, this looks an awful lot like what’s called a “soft coup.”

A “soft coup” is generally defined as a means other than violence by which a nation’s leader, or nominee for leadership, is removed from power, or rendered merely a figurehead of a government.

This was a genuine Constitutional crisis, a very real attack on the “democracy” that the Democrats insist they alone exist to protect. It was orchestrated and executed by unelected persons who had actually been running our White House (and continue to do so to this day), instead of the chief executive we had elected to do this.

I don’t have time to do a deeper dive into this right now, but will develop this section as time goes on — hopefully in conjunction with some A-list Constitutional and election law experts. (Disclosure: I am not a lawyer, but I have a long history of designing winning courtroom presentations for law firms that are engaged in high-value and complex litigation.)

“It took centuries of intellectual, philosophical development to achieve political freedom. It was a long struggle, stretching from Aristotle to John Locke to the Founding Fathers. The system they established was not based on unlimited majority rule, but on its opposite: on individual rights, which were not to be alienated by majority vote or minority plotting. The individual was not left at the mercy of his neighbors or his leaders: the Constitutional system of checks and balances was scientifically devised to protect him from both. This was the great American achievement—and if concern for the actual welfare of other nations were our present leaders’ motive, this is what we should have been teaching the world.”
- Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, “Theory and Practice”

If you value the 2024 Fact Check infographic report series (previous reports listed below; see background and mission here), subscribe below to receive each new one via email until Election Day, and share this post on social media:

Previous 2024 Fact-Check infographic reports

October 6: Fact Check 1: Did Trump’s policies destroy manufacturing jobs, reversing Obama’s “booming” economy?
October 7: Fact Check 2: Electricity prices stayed the same under Trump, but skyrocketed under Biden-Harris
October 8: Fact Check 3: Gasoline prices declined under Trump, but skyrocketed under Biden
October 9: Fact Check 4: Diesel prices were stable under Trump, but skyrocketed under Biden
October 10: Fact Check 5: Black home ownership rate declined under Obama, grew under Trump
October 11: Fact Check 6: The Biden-Harris administration is the #1 cash enabler of the Iranian terrorist regime
October 12: Fact Check 7: Home ownership dropped to a 50-year low under Obama, but grew 7.9% under Trump
October 13: Fact Check 8: Under Trump, car loan interest rates were stable - but jumped 67% under Biden-Harris
October 14: Fact Check 9: The price of eggs dropped under Trump, but increased 218% under Biden-Harris
October 15: Fact Check 10: Black and Hispanic unemployment under Trump dropped significantly

Jon’s Essentialia

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