ElectionLine Podcast Probes Scandals & Satirists With Jon Stewart's Return, Jake Tapper On CNN's ‘United States Of Scandal,' & Biden Back In LA

ElectionLine Podcast Probes Scandals & Satirists With Jon Stewart’s Return, Jake Tapper On CNN’s ‘United States Of Scandal,’ & Biden Back In LA

Editor’s note: Running until the final general election results come in, the Deadline ElectionLine podcast spotlights the 2024 campaign and the blurred lines between politics and entertainment in modern America. Hosted by Washington bureau chief Ted Johnson and senior editor Dominic Patten, the podcast features commentary and interviews with top lawmakers and entertainment figures. At the same time, you can follow all the news in Biden & Trump rematch and more on the ElectionLine hub on Deadline.

Scandal and satire have been a significant part of political life in America since before George Washington crossed the Delaware. In that grand tradition, we tackle both topics today on the Deadline ElectionLine podcast – as you can hear above.

Breaking away from breaking news for a second, CNN’s Jake Tapper joins us today to talk about his upcoming United States of Scandal series, which debuts with two episodes on Sunday. Hosted by Tapper, the series dives into the sometimes-sordid stories of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey and former presidential candidate John Edwards, to name an infamous and sometimes incarcerated few.

“They are not anomalies,” Tapper told us of United States of Scandal’s subjects and the long history of impropriety in American public life. “They are part of our body politic because our politicians are people, and they are often people with large egos and hubris dating all the way back to Alexander Hamilton and his affair.”

“What I wanted to do with this series was to go back and see some of the more recent ones where the players are still alive, still willing to tell their stories and learn things we didn’t learn at the time.”

Tapper shared why so many of the scandals, including those of the Trump era, are Shakespearean in nature, and his theory of why so many figures find themselves in political and legal quicksand that defy all sense of good judgment.

Tapper said, “I’ve had this theory of leadership for some time called the Jar-Jar Binks theory, which is that powerful people rise to a level where they can remove from their inner circle anyone telling them something that they don’t want to hear, like don’t put that Jamaican frog in any of your sequels,” Tapper said. “Now Jar-Jar Binks is not a scandal, and those movies made billions of dollars … but the idea that a John Edwards or a Mark Sanford or an Eliot Spitzer have removed from their inner circle anyone who could say, ‘What are you doing? That’s a bad idea.'”

“Removing those people from your inner circle is almost always a mark of bad things are to come.”

Blagojevich sat down with Tapper for the series. John Edwards has said little and did not participate, but Tapper did speak to the woman at the center of his scandal, Rielle Hunter. McGreevey was perhaps most contrite about his scandal, Tapper said.

Tapper also talked about what he is up to next in his writing career and Hollywood adaptations of his work (can you say “streamer”?). And given that there are no shortage of scandals in politics, Hollywood and other sectors, could there be a Season 2 of United States of Scandal?

After nearly a decade in the wilderness and AppleTV+, Jon Stewart returned as host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show on February 12. Mocking himself almost as much as he poked the aged Joe Biden and Donald Trump, Stewart will be at the fake anchor’s desk on the fake news show every Monday up to and probably a bit beyond the election.

Stewart’s return snared 1.9 million viewers on Comedy Central and across parent company Paramount Global’s various outlets and streamers.

It was a good number, but what does Stewart realty mean in 2024? Or to put it bluntly: Is Jon Stewart still Jon Stewart? Can the admirable advocate for 9/11 responders and veterans really cut through the noise in a multi-platform universe very different from what he left behind in 2015?

Also, President Joe Biden is coming back to Los Angeles on February 20 for another round of up-close and personal fundraisers.

The incumbent hovered up $15 million on his last donor rich visit to the Southland and looks certain to repeat that Hollywood ATM withdrawal this time. Biden will be among familiar faces with deep pocketed shindigs hosted by Haim and Cheryl Saban and Casey Wasserman.. However, since his last trip out to Tinseltown just weeks ago, the mood around the 81-year-old president has shifted, in more ways than one.

Released on February 8, Special Counsel Robert Hur’s 388-page report exonerated the president over classified documents in his possession after leaving the vice presidency in 2017. At the same time, while Hur’s report declared there would be no charges against Biden, it also offered a damning assessment of the Commander-in-Chief. In words re-quoted over and over in the past week, the report said one reason the president wasn’t being charged is that “at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did in our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”

The White House pushed back vigorously at the report, and are still doing so, with Vice President Kamala Harris and others insisting that Biden is fully engaged. Yet on his show, Stewart pointed out that Biden did himself no favors with a quickly called press conference late on February 8 where he confused Mexico and Egypt.

They’ll still be writing big checks, but you can be sure Hollywood donors will be looking to see how engaged Biden is when he is out in L.A. next week.

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