Listen Now: Amy Robach and T. J. Holmes React to President Biden’s Historic News
In an emergency episode of the iHeartPodcast “Amy & T.J. Podcast,” renowned television news anchors Amy Robach and T. J. Holmes quickly hopped on a mic to give their unique perspectives on President Joe Biden’s historic decision to end his campaign for reelection.
On Sunday, July 21, 2024, President Biden announced his decision to step down as the Democratic nominee for the 2024 election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the party’s nominee.
“It was shockingly shocking, I think maybe that’s the best way to describe it,” Amy says at the top of the episode. “We were all kind of waiting, and still when the news came on Sunday, it seemed to have caught everyone off guard.”
“I felt…almost a sigh of relief for him to a certain degree. Every move he made over the past three weeks was scrutinized, as ‘he’s an old man and his mind isn’t sharp,’ ” T.J. said. “This is a guy that has 50 years in public office and public service – you don’t want him to go out this way…You hate it for the guy, for his family. We can only imagine behind the scenes.”
The shock extended to the major news stations, which Amy points out seemed to be unprepared as none of their major voices were on-air to cover the news. As journalists and long-time on-air anchors, Amy and T.J. were both surprised by this given how historic the announcement was.
"This is a huge, probably the biggest political story that many of these political reporters have ever followed or covered," Amy said. "So when a big story is dropping like this, all the big three networks, the anchors, they rush to the studios and they get in place and they take over the coverage because this is huge. This is what journalists live for, these types of stories. And when we turned on each one of the networks none of the network stars were in place. No one was ready."
“This is not a criticism, but an observation given this is the biggest story of the year,” added T.J.
Listen to the full episode below, and stay tuned to Amy and T.J.’s iHeartPodcast as they continue to cover this historic time in American politics.
