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.
Todd Points Finger at Biden’s Inner Circle
The former NBC News chief political analyst joined The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich for the conversation, and the two wasted no time diving into the most combustible theory surrounding the Biden era: that key figures inside the White House and the Biden campaign may have engineered the candidate’s most humiliating public moment on purpose. Leibovich raised the idea that certain insiders believed exposing Biden’s cognitive struggles on a world stage would actually serve a useful purpose — creating the kind of visible “daylight” that private conversations never could.
Todd embraced the theory fully. He argued that campaign operatives Anita Dunn and Jen O’Malley Dillon would naturally deny any involvement, comparing the situation to longstanding suspicions about who helped delay the release of American hostages until Jan. 20 during the Reagan transition — a matter, he noted, that has never been officially confirmed and likely never will be. The parallel was pointed: some political acts, Todd suggested, are simply too convenient to be coincidental, even if the paper trail never materializes.
He went further, essentially endorsing the alleged strategy even while acknowledging its murky ethics. Todd said that based on reporting from Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson in their book, Biden’s inner circle was never going to voluntarily acknowledge the president’s decline — meaning the only path to forcing a change was putting the reality in front of the entire country at once, live and unfiltered. Leibovich noted that 80 percent of the country had already sensed what was happening well before the debate stage made it undeniable.
The Media’s Role — and Todd’s Defense of It
One of the more striking threads in the conversation was Todd’s pushback against the narrative that the press had covered up or downplayed Biden’s condition. He argued that reporters had, in fact, 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.
Todd acknowledged he could have been more aggressive in connecting the dots, particularly around Biden’s refusal to sit for interviews, but 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.
Democrats Still Dodging, Todd Says
Todd reserved some of his sharpest commentary for Democratic politicians who, in his view, continue to avoid the obvious. He cited Chuck Schumer as an example of a prominent Democrat who has dodged straightforward 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 fallout, Todd suggested, extends well beyond Biden himself. He argued 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.
A Debate Moment That Keeps Reverberating
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.
Sources: Mediaite · Fox News · NBC News · NBC News
