Undebatably Bad

A
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It's Friday, June 28. America had a pretty low bar. Did either of these candidates clear it? We start here.

A historic first debate is marked by tirades, pettiness and pauses.

B
If we finally beat Medicare.

A
Now, a startlingly weak performance from President Biden is raising questions about his fitness. One Supreme Court decision we expected, the other one we didn't.

C
Now, funding that was part of this deal is nowhere near near going to be doled out.

A
A landmark deal between opioid makers and overdose victims has just been derailed. And trouble for Boeing in the air, trouble for Boeing in space.

D
There are helium leaks. There are issues with the thrusters, why.

A
They'Re now getting reprimanded down here on the ground.

From ABC News, this is start here. I'm Brad Milke.

It had been 1344 days since President Joe Biden last shared a room with his predecessor, Donald Trump. There have been no photo ops since, no birthday greetings. Trump certainly didn't show up to Biden's inauguration after his supporters stormed the Capitol. Well, last night on CNN, in the first presidential debate ahead of the general election, the first debate held before conventions. In the televised era, both candidates were standing at podiums 8ft. Apartheid, they never shook hands. And in many ways, this felt like we had jumped forward in time exactly four years, both men carrying many of the same views, the same stances they did in 2020. But this time, both men had been president and they were four years older. And the moment this debate began, that fact was glaringly obvious. In fact, by the end of these 90 minutes, a lot of Americans were expressing profound anxiety about their choices. And some political operatives were sounding alarm bells. If you didn't watch it, I don't blame you. Don't worry. We got your recap this morning with ABC, ABC's political director Rick Klein, who is watching this from ABC Studios. Rick, what did you notice, I guess as this debate began?

E
Well, there were just so many weird moments. I mean, just to watch this debate and say, what exactly is going on here? And it's not just that the two men were dripping with disdain for each other, which was obvious from the start, but it was that Joe Biden, who we know had spent all this time preparing for this debate and had been working on his lines, and his lines of attack, just seemed to whiff over and over again, making sure that we're.

B
Able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the COVID excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with, look, if we finally beat Medicare.

E
Thank you, President Biden. President Trump, he's right.

F
He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death and he's destroying Medicare.

E
He had these opportunities. At times, he seemed to just freeze up and take a few seconds. At times, he seemed to lose his train of thought. At times, he was bringing up things that were his own vulnerabilities. He would randomly talk about Afghanistan or something around the border in what should have been kind of a layup of an answer.

B
And I'm going to continue to move until we get the total ban on the total initiative relative to what we're going to do with more border patrol and more asylum officers.

F
President Trump, I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said either.

E
Look, and you just had to think, well, what did they spend all that time preparing for? And if you wanted to just answer the questions about his mental acuity and his ability, I was the second youngest.

B
Person ever elected United States Senate, and now I'm the oldest. This guy's three years younger and a lot less competent.

E
Did they actually do the opposite, worsen his political predicament? By agreeing to this debate, historically, earlier than we've ever seen before in presidential.

A
History, the moderators chose to focus on issues up top, like economy, abortion.

The other issue Americans have raised is, like you said, can either of these guys function in the Oval Office for four years, like four years from now? Like, did the style of this debate, did the rambling, did some of the incoherence almost provide more insight than maybe their policy positions?

E
Yeah. Look, I think Americans know a lot about Joe Biden and a lot about Donald Trump coming in here. So this wasn't about you. Let's play out what their differences of opinion are on, say, Ukraine or Afghanistan or Medicare or Social Security. And those are important discussions to be had. But I don't think that's really the utility that most voters would have at this stage. They wanted to see what these guys have at this moment, particularly given the advanced age of both candidates.

B
The only person on this stage is a convicted felon is the man I'm.

E
Looking at right now for Donald Trump. Look, there were a lot of lies and a lot of mistruths and half truths that he put out there.

F
This man is a criminal. This man. You're lucky. You're lucky I did nothing wrong. We'd have a system that was rigged and disgusting. I did nothing wrong.

E
Thank you, President Trump. But by Trump comparisons, he was on his best behavior. And it's not just you're grading on a curve on something like this. That was discipline. He tried to just let Joe Biden go out there and be Joe Biden.

A
It was like rambling in the way that he does where you're almost, it's like Fox News talking points. And yet he wasn't going after Joe Biden in the same way that he does on a stump sometimes.

E
Yeah, that's right. And it was odd because, you know, the rules were set up in a way that they wouldn't be allowed to interrupt each other. The microphones were only on one at a time.

B
How many billions of dollars do you owe on civil penalties for molesting a woman in public, for doing a whole range of things, of having sex with a porn star on the night while your wife was pregnant? I mean, what, what are you talking about?

You have the morals of an alley cat.

E
Give your math, sir.

F
I didn't have sex with a porn star. Number one.

E
They found other ways to insult each other and other. Other ways to get off their own respective game.

F
We have polling. We have other things that do. They rate them the worst because what he's done is so bad. And they rate me. I'll show you. I will show you. And they rate me one of the best. Okay? And if I'm given another four years, I will be the best. I think I'll be the best.

E
The shoes on the other foot from four years ago. Last time, Donald Trump was an unpopular president trying to run for reelection with a nation that was, in a lot of ways, in crisis. Joe Biden was the challenger. Who can hold that to his feet? This time, Trump's the challenger.

F
On January 6, we had a great border. Nobody coming through. Very few.

E
There were definitely moments, you can imagine, a slightly younger Joe Biden, the outsider Joe Biden running against Donald Trump. He wouldn't have missed those opportunities.

B
Instead, he talked. They talked about these people being patriots and great patrons of America. In fact, he says he'll now forgive them for what they've done.

They've been convicted. He says he wants to commute their sentences and say that, no.

E
When he talked about January 6 all over again, that was just such an easy potential answer for him. When abortion rights came up, I put.

F
Three great supreme Court justices on the court, and they happened to vote in favor of killing Roe v. Wade and moving it back to the states. This is something that everybody wanted.

E
We know that Joe Biden has great talking points on that and a great, great policy positions that he's confident in. But he seemed to either take a pass or take it in these strange directions.

B
The idea that states are able to do this is a little like saying we're going to turn civil rights back to the states, let each state have a different rule. Look, there's so many young women who have been, including a young woman who just was murdered, and he went to the funeral.

The idea that she was murdered by.

E
An immigrant, that's, I think, what left a lot of people buzzing about what exactly Joe Biden's capable of right now in terms of at least the performance parts of the presidency.

A
Were there any difference made, like, any positives, any lines at all, Rick, that that would convince an american to vote for one of these guys instead of voting against them?

E
I think it was probably for a lot of people, kind of a sad statement to see these two guys out there at one point arguing for an extended period of time about their golf talents.

F
I just won two club championships, not even senior, two regular club championships. To do that, you have to be quite smart, and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way. And I do it, he doesn't do it. He can't hit a ball 50 yards. He challenged me to a golf match. He can't hit a ball 50 yards.

E
It just didn't seem to connect in any way to the realities of how people are living their lives.

B
And by the way, I told you before, I'm happy to play golf if you carry your own bag, think you can do it?

F
That's the biggest lie, that he's the 6th handicap.

E
Of all the boast and the kind of bravado of two kind of older guys insulting each other. I just don't see how that televises very well for many people. And look, it may be that a lot of this is already built into people's understanding of both men, and that's why they're as historically unpopular as they are, but they were both going out there trying to overcome some of the skepticism around their candidacy. And I just didn't see a lot, particularly from the current president, that that would seem to accomplish that.

A
That's the thing, because I was like, I can see a world where people listening to Trump go, what is he talking about? And yet the story this morning really does seem to be about President Biden. I mean, is there, how bad is this? I guess, for the current president? What are you hearing?

E
This is going to be a tenuous couple of hours and couple of days, in all likelihood, with a lot of Democrats making calls to each other and kind of venting to each other, mostly anonymously for now, about what to do about this. There are many, many Democrats, including many in elected office, who are saying, we got a problem here and we're worried we're going to lose this election. We're worried that Joe Biden's not up to the task. Then the question becomes, do you go public with those concerns and potentially wound him more politically? Do you try to organize something that could force him to reconsider his candidacy? There is nothing.

A
Are you talking about getting Biden off the ticket effectively, Rick, is that a real consideration?

E
The only way that works functionally is if Joe Biden himself wants off the ticket. That's it. There is no front door option right now. The front door option was to beat him in the primaries. He didn't lose the primaries. There was no one even came close to him. That is long since gone. So, yes, the democratic convention is still about six weeks away, but there's no functional way that, that Joe Biden is not the nominee unless Joe Biden decides he doesn't want to be the nominee. The question then becomes, what does this drumbeat, this groundswell, potentially look like, and how does it penetrate Biden's inner circle? Does it ultimately convince the Biden family and the president himself that for the good of the party, maybe the good of the country, he needs to set to step aside. Short of that, a lot of Democrats can do a lot of bedwetting, and it won't change anything about the facts. Joe Biden will be the nominee unless he doesn't want to be.

A
But still just to be bringing up, and we are hearing from Democrats, you know, texting you and other folks at ABC, being like, I mean, this was much worse than I thought. So in fact, we were even talking about how you might get someone booted off the ballot at this stage is bizarre. It was also interesting to see people like Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, these younger Democrats in the spin room supporting Biden afterwards, even as some speculated these folks might want to stay close to the phone this weekend. Rick Klein, after a historic debate. Thanks so much.

E
Hey, thanks, Brad.

A
Next up on start here, one of the great bipartisan issues in this country is the destruction caused by opioids. But now a landmark settlement has been blown up by the Supreme Court. We're back in a bit.

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There were four important Supreme Court rulings yesterday, and we actually knew what one of them would likely be. A crucial decision on abortion had been accidentally released earlier this week. And sure enough, that draft ruling became an official ruling yesterday morning. But there was also a ruling we didn't necessarily see coming. And this one could upend everything we know about justice for the victims of opioid addiction over the last 20 years. ABC senior Washington reporter Devin Dwyer covers the court. And Devon, I remember we covered this huge, groundbreaking deal involving these families and the makers of OxyContin. And now the Supreme Court is throwing the settlement out. What's going on?

C
Yeah, in the wake of the opioid epidemic that has ravaged this country, Brad, I mean, it's almost hard to think about it. More than 100,000 Americans have lost their lives because of overdoses related to this drug, which Purdue Pharma, which is owned by the Sackler family, developed in 1996, marketed aggressively and downplayed the dangers of addiction.

D
My son, 18 year old high school senior, was laying dead in his bed, and his friends told me he did an oxy.

C
In the wake of that reality, a growing number of victims, survivors, cities, state governments sought to sue Purdue Pharma for their role in this devastation.

A
There are many lawsuits that have blamed Purdue and my family for the opioid crisis.

While we deny liability and are vigorously contesting these claims, we want to respond to the opioid crisis.

C
And over the course of all of those claims coming in, the company declared bankruptcy and began a negotiated settlement that took years to reach. It involved more than 100,000 individual victims, cities and state governments across the country.

And one sweeping settlement was reached. It would have forced the Sackler family to surrender the company to turn it into a nonprofit producing only opioid addiction treatments.

Funded $6 billion in restitution to state and local governments to fight opioid addiction. 750 million of that would have gone directly to victims and survivors, who would have received payments of up to $45,000 each in some cases.

And it would have controversially shielded the Sackler family themselves from any civil liability pertaining to these claims.

B
The Sacklers may be bad people, but they're not stupid people, and they will not give any money to evade the opioid crisis or to victims to help rebuild their lives unless they get those releases.

C
Well, more than 97% of the individuals involved in this hard fought negotiation approved the deal. But a small number, Brad, including the us bankruptcy trustee, sort of a watchdog arm of the Justice Department, opposed the deal. They said a better deal could be gotten and that this immunity for this family is not part of the bankruptcy code.

E
Justice.

A
Justice.

C
And that's what the Supreme Court said yesterday in a narrowly divided decision, five to four. Justice Neil Gorsuch for the majority said, it's not in the text of us bankruptcy law that a third party, the Sackler family in this case, which is not declaring bankruptcy on their own, can get this kind of immunity in any sort of a deal. It's simply not part of the law, and therefore it. I can't stand.

A
Yeah, it was interesting looking at this ruling, Devin, because it's a very mixed ruling ideologically, right, like you had conservatives siding with liberals, liberals with conservatives. Was that kind of because there were dueling issues at play here that some family members were upset about?

C
Oh, definitely. And, you know, the argument by Justice Neil Gorsuch was very textual based, that, you know, we may well want as a society, as a public policy reason, to allow this sort of immunity arrangement to be part of a bankruptcy deal to settle these claims, to get money paid out. But he said the law just simply doesnt allow it right now. Well, that did not sit well with Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who in a strongly worded dissent that was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and the Chief Justice John Roberts called this devastating for the victims of the opioid crisis. And in fact, Justice Kavanaugh goes on to write quite bluntly that because this deal is now dashed, taking years to negotiate, more people will die, in his view, because funding that was part of this deal is nowhere near going to be doled out to these cities and states to fight this crisis. And that's, in his view, a very sad outcome here. This isn't the end of the day for victims in cities and states, of course. But what this means, Brad, is now they will each individually have to take their cases, their claims to court. The Sackler family can get sued. The Purdue pharma bankruptcy can continue, but it will be a scramble now instead of this collective nationwide settlement that would have lumped all of this together, it's sort of a free for all, according to attorneys involved in this negotiation.

A
That's interesting because you'd think that there are some families that are like, oh, wow, we could even sue again and maybe get the Sacklers on the hook. But it costs so much time and effort to do that.

C
It sure does. And supporters of the deal argued that the payouts in the end, if this is how it's going to go now, will be much smaller for individual families than perhaps they could have received here. But we'll see.

B
Right?

A
Which in the meantime, it looks like Purdue Pharma's lawyers and the Sacklers and some of these families will try to go back to the drawing board for a new national settlement. But, I mean, this one took years to cobble together. Devin, the other big ruling of the day, of course, was this ruling in the anticipated abortion case out of Idaho. The rule there right now is you can perform an abortion to save the life of the mother, but not if it's about preserving her health or protecting somebody from non life threatening medical conditions or infertility, life changing circumstances. But an abortion wouldn't be allowed there. We had actually seen a draft of this ruling, and sure enough, that appears to be the opinion. So what does this mean for women and for doctors starting now?

C
Well, the headline isn't a surprise. It's the same as it was when we saw the mistakenly posted draft. What it means, Brad, is the Supreme Court has kicked the can. It means the lower court order that would force Idaho now to allow abortion access for women in emergency situations when their health is at risk, that will stand, at least for now.

A
The case isn't really fully resolved yet. I think that all of us have this momentary relief, but are still really worried moving forward, and we still just want to be able to take the best care of our community and of our patients that we see.

C
The litigation will continue. It will likely come back to the Supreme Court. But this was no solace to the number of other states with very strict abortion bans and the women and abortion rights advocates in those states that sought to have this big question answered. In fact, Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a partial dissent, partial concurrence attached to this dismissal, if you will, called this a catastrophe. She said that this is not good news for patients in Idaho or in any other state because this question will now linger out there for several more years. She was quite angry. Justice Samuel Alito was quite angry. And that, I think Brad, is one of the sub headlines in this story of this case, is just how personal and divisive this was for the justices themselves. I have not seen this kind of language thrown back and forth between justices Ketanji, Brown, Jackson, Samuel Alito calling out other conservatives for making a grave mistake. And that caused a lot of finger pointing. Maybe why it was held back and then leaked out. And they couldn't quite get their act together on why when this was gonna come down.

But this fight is not over when it comes to state abortion bans and exceptions for women's health.

A
Yeah. Well, and again, to hear somebody like Ketanji Brown Jackson and somebody like Samuel Alito disagreeing with others in their usual camps. Cause in this case, they wanted a ruling. It was for different reasons, but they each wanted a ruling here. But also just shows you how kind of bizarre the alliances can end up being on some of these more complex cases. All right, Devin Dwyer, more cases to come later today. So we'll talk to you soon.

C
We do, Brad. See you soon.

A
Okay, one more quick break when we come back. Boeing wanted to get everyone back on its side, but it might have just made things worse. One last thing is next.

And one last thing. People around the world have been asking Boeing to explain itself. Well, everything's been going so great for this company that now even the explanations cause controversy. Like, you're in, like, their facility. But it's a very polished presentation.

D
Oh, it was highly choreographed, very controlled. You know.

A
It's ABC's transportation correspondent, Gio Benitez, who earlier this week got an invitation to go into a Boeing facility as the planemaker continues to try to reassure customers.

D
Yeah. So, Brad, this was the Retton Washington factory. This is the big 737 Max factory where they build all of the planes. And so we got to go inside.

They took us then into the factory itself, and we saw all the different stations where the fuselage goes through and where they put the wings on and put the seats in. And basically they were saying that they were changing all of the safety procedures at each of these stations so that something like the Alaska incident doesn't happen again.

A
Now, this was not a normal day on the factory floor. Journalists were tightly corralled, but then again, it is a factory floor. But Geo says Boeing didn't just invite people to give a tour. It brought them in to make a point.

D
They held a sort of briefing for all of the press that came out there. And basically they wanted to give us more information about what happened during the January 5 incident, which, of course, is when that Alaska Airlines flight at 16,000ft lost that door plug in midair.

A
You have to remain seated. We have to make sure it's safe for us to be moving right now.

D
They basically reviewed all of that and, and what they found. And they said that at the time, basically, someone forgot to put in the paperwork before that door plug was removed for repairs at the factory. And that, they say, is what started all of this. And they said that Boeing was shocked to learn that one employee didn't file the proper paperwork.

A
Of course, there have also been current and former employees filing complaints under federal whistleblower protections, saying Boeing has been actively ignoring shortcomings for years. Well, this week another person stepped forward.

D
Yeah. So this is another whistleblower over at Spirit Aerosystems. Now, this is the company that manufactures the fuselage for Boeing. So basically, Spirit creates the fuselage and then sends it over to Boeing. And this whistleblower is basically saying that there are flaws in the manufacturing process us that could really impact the safety of the plane. And this whistleblower says that he went to management at both Spirit and Boeing with these concerns, but was later fired.

A
Spirit says they're actively looking into these claims. Boeing says they immediately investigated and found nothing. I would love for employees to be comfortable telling us if they are not, it is okay that they go to the FAA. And so Boeing ends its little tour with reporters answering a few questions. Everyone leaves the factory. But that's when things got weird yesterday.

D
So here's what's wild about this, Brad. I was on my way to report this story for Good Morning America, and all of a sudden, we get an alert on our phones that says the NTSB. So that's the National Transportation Safety Board. That's the group that investigates all of these big accidents.

They are now sanctioning Boeing for that media event.

A
That's right. The NTSB says we're supposed to be the conduit of information to the american public. And when we're investigating you, you're not allowed to just go rogue.

D
Speaker one, the NTSB is the one that's supposed to give us that information. Once they've reviewed it, once they've analyzed it, and they haven't done that, they're still in the process of investigating that incident. And so Boeing was not supposed to share with us what it believes happened that day.

A
So that's got to be enough trouble for one company, right? You got the door plugs, the whistleblowers, the sanctions, but I kid you not, that is not all. There were also issues for Boeing in space.

Remember Boeing's Starliner space capsule? It took forever to get a go for launch. Now it's finally in orbit. Well, at the moment, it can't come back down.

D
It was supposed to come back to Earth within eight days. It's a test launch. It's a test mission, but it hasn't been able to come back. It's still at the International Space Station because there are helium leaks, there are issues with the thrusters. And so they're trying to review those issues, trying to fix those issues.

A
That's right. The Starliner currently hasn't gotten the green light to return to Earth. And remember, there are two crew members up there with it. So what happens to them? Well, NASA says these astronauts are not stranded. They've got more than enough resources to be up there for quite a while. But this could lead to an awkward save from a Boeing competitor.

D
It's very possible that SpaceX may have to go up there and get them to bring them back to Earth.

A
Boeing says, of course, the safety of the astronauts comes first. But this caps a really difficult week for one of America's biggest manufacturers. They also say they've sent a letter of apology to the NTSB for that media event. They even shared that letter with us, although hopefully they got clearance before publicizing that.

Man, I thought my week was stressful. Start here is for produced by Kelly Torres Jen Newman Brenda Salinas Baker Vika Aronson Cameron Chertavian Anthony Ali Maura, Milwaukee and Amira Williams. Ariel Chester is our social media producer. Josh Cohan is director of podcast programming. I'm our managing editor. Laura Mayers, our executive producer. Thanks to Lakia Brown, John Newman, Tara Gimble and Liz Alessi. Special thanks this week to Chris Berry, Jonah Haskell and Trevor Hastings. I'm Brad Milke. See you next week.

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Undebatably Bad

Primary Topic

Episode Summary

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Episode Chapters

1: The Presidential Debate

2: Democratic Concerns

3: Supreme Court Rulings

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