Former Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd says he will “go to his grave” believing that Joe Biden’s own team deliberately set up the disastrous June 28, 2024, debate against then-candidate Donald Trump — the clash that ultimately drove Biden out of the 2024 presidential race. Todd made the claim on the June 20, 2025, episode of The Chuck ToddCast, sending fresh shockwaves through a media world still reckoning with how Biden’s decline was handled.
An Intentional Strategy to Force Biden Out?
During the conversation with The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich, the former NBC News chief political analyst embraced a theory that Biden’s inner circle may have deliberately exposed his cognitive struggles on the debate stage because private warnings had failed to produce action. Leibovich suggested that certain insiders might have believed creating visible “daylight” in front of the entire country was the only way to force change, a notion Todd said he found entirely credible.
Todd cited reporting from Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson in their book, which indicated that Biden’s closest advisers were never going to voluntarily acknowledge the president’s condition. The only option left, he argued, was putting the reality in front of the nation live and unfiltered. Leibovich observed that 80 percent of the country had already sensed what was happening well before the debate made it undeniable.
Anticipating denials from campaign operatives Anita Dunn and Jen O’Malley Dillon, Todd drew a comparison to longstanding suspicions about who helped delay the release of American hostages until Jan. 20 during the Reagan transition — a matter that has never been officially confirmed and likely never will be. Some political acts, he suggested, are simply too convenient to be coincidental, even without a paper trail.
Democratic Leaders Still Evading Hard Questions
Todd directed some of his harshest criticism at Democratic politicians who continue to avoid straightforward accountability. He singled out Chuck Schumer as an example of a prominent Democrat who has dodged basic questions about whether Biden should have run at all — a question Todd called laughably easy to answer. He said he has had similar off-the-record conversations with multiple governors and senators, none of whom would say publicly what they apparently acknowledge in private.
The political damage, Todd argued, extends beyond Biden himself. He suggested that any Democrat closely tied to the Biden administration carries real baggage heading into future cycles, specifically naming Pete Buttigieg as someone whose proximity to Biden could complicate any future national ambitions — even for a figure who might otherwise be considered a top-tier contender.
Todd Defends Media Coverage, With Caveats
Todd pushed back against the narrative that the press had covered up or downplayed Biden’s condition. He argued that reporters had flagged observable signs — Biden’s use of a shorter staircase, his near-total avoidance of interviews — and that simply noting those details amounted to transparency. Leibovich pressed back gently, pointing out that the pattern was visible enough to constitute an intuitive public truth long before anyone in power admitted it.
Acknowledging he could have been more aggressive in connecting the dots, particularly around Biden’s refusal to sit for interviews, Todd said he felt constrained by the professional standard of not speculating about a public figure’s health without direct sourcing. The tension around media coverage of Biden’s condition continues to reverberate inside major newsrooms more than a year after the debate itself.
From Panic to Conspiracy Theory
In the immediate aftermath of the June 28, 2024, debate, Todd described Democrats as being in full-on panic — and he warned publicly that it was going to be a long summer. Nearly one year later, his commentary has only grown more pointed. What was once cautious political analysis has evolved into a full-throated theory about intentional sabotage — one Todd readily acknowledges may never be proven.
He compared the prospect of ever getting a confession to waiting for deathbed memoirs, suggesting the truth, if there is one, will arrive long after the political stakes have faded. For now, the debate over who knew what — and who did what about it — remains very much alive, fueled in no small part by Todd himself.