Hot Swap growing, donors revolt, President Kamala? SCOTUS breakdown: Immunity, Chevron, Censorship

Evidence shows that President Joe Biden both completed and aired the scheduled sit‑down interview with George Stephanopoulos before he dropped out of the 2024 race.

• ABC News announced that Biden would sit down with Stephanopoulos on Friday, July 5, 2024, with the interview taped that day in Wisconsin and aired in full as a primetime special on Friday, July 5, and again on This Week on Sunday, July 7. Clips began airing on World News Tonight that same Friday. (abc.com)
• Biden did not withdraw from the 2024 presidential election until July 21, 2024, when he publicly announced his decision to end his re‑election campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. (theguardian.com)

The prediction being evaluated is: “Joe Biden will not drop out of the 2024 presidential race before he completes and airs the scheduled sit‑down interview with George Stephanopoulos on the weekend following July 3, 2024.” Since Biden remained in the race through and well past the July 5–7 interview airings, this condition was satisfied.

Therefore, the prediction is right.

Available reporting shows that the George Stephanopoulos ABC interview on July 5, 2024 did not restore confidence in Biden’s candidacy and instead was widely seen by key Democrats as failing to quell anxieties:

• Coverage immediately afterward noted that the interview “did not assuage Democratic anxieties” and that more Democratic lawmakers publicly called on Biden to bow out of the race, adding to a growing chorus of concerned donors and strategists.(cnbc.com)
• Hill Democrats described the interview as “not impressive,” saying “no one’s mind has been changed” and that Biden was “toast,” with lawmakers preparing to increase public pressure for him to step aside.(axios.com) ABC’s own follow‑up segment framed the situation as “pressure mounts on Biden after ABC News interview,” explicitly noting that the hoped‑for calming effect inside the party did not materialize and that the number of Democrats urging him to exit was growing.(abcnews.go.com) The Guardian similarly called the appearance “unlikely to appease his critics,” despite no major gaffes.(theguardian.com) Together this indicates the interview was broadly perceived as weak or at best mixed, not the kind of strong performance that would quell speculation.

What happened next lines up with the prediction’s “poor interview” branch:

• Over the following days, intra‑party and donor pressure intensified, with more Democratic members of Congress and influential figures calling for Biden to step aside, largely rooted in concerns over his age, debate performance, and failure to calm fears in subsequent appearances, including the ABC interview.(cnbc.com)(axios.com)
• On July 21, 2024—roughly 16 days after the interview—Biden announced he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement, explicitly bowing to “weeks of growing pressure” from within his own party.(cnbc.com)(axios.com) He thus exited the race within “the subsequent weeks,” as the prediction specified.
• Following his withdrawal, Kamala Harris launched her campaign on July 21 and officially became the Democratic presidential nominee on August 5, 2024, meaning Biden was not ultimately the Democratic nominee.(en.wikipedia.org)

The prediction, as normalized, said: if the Stephanopoulos interview was broadly perceived as strong, pressure would subside; if it was broadly perceived as poor, Biden would be forced out within the next few weeks and would not end up as the nominee. The realized path matches the second branch: the interview was widely judged as failing in its core goal of reassuring Democrats, pressure escalated rather than subsided, and within about two weeks Biden ended his campaign and Harris became the nominee. Given these facts, the prediction is best classified as right.

Key elements of Jason’s prediction did not occur:

1. No “speed‑run” summer primary with debates. After President Biden’s poor June 2024 debate performance and growing pressure, he withdrew from the 2024 presidential race on July 21, 2024, but Democrats did not run a rapid multi‑candidate primary with ~five debates over ten weeks. Instead, party leaders and delegates quickly consolidated behind Vice President Kamala Harris, who was formally made the nominee via a virtual delegate vote concluding on August 5–6, 2024, without a new series of debates or a multi‑candidate “speed‑run” primary. (en.wikipedia.org)

2. Biden did not resign the presidency, and Harris did not become president before the election. When Biden ended his reelection bid, he explicitly said he would continue serving as president for the remainder of his term. He remained in office through the 2024 campaign and left when his successor was inaugurated in January 2025; Harris never assumed the presidency before the election. (en.wikipedia.org)

3. The Democrat did not “demolish” Trump; Trump won. Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee, but she lost the November 5, 2024 general election to Donald Trump, who was elected the 47th president. This is the opposite of the prediction that the eventual Democratic nominee would decisively defeat Trump. (en.wikipedia.org)

Because the core predicted sequence (Biden resigns the presidency → Harris becomes president → a multi‑candidate summer debate sprint → Democratic nominee crushes Trump) diverged from what actually happened, the overall prediction is wrong, despite partially anticipating that Biden would exit the race and that Harris would become the Democratic nominee.

Kamala Harris did not become President of the United States as a result of the 2024 cycle.

Key events:

• On July 21, 2024, Joe Biden announced he would not seek re‑election. This led to the launch of Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign the same day, and she officially became the Democratic nominee on August 5, 2024.(en.wikipedia.org)
• In the November 5, 2024 election, Donald Trump was elected the 47th president, beginning a formal transition from President Joe Biden to President‑elect Trump.(en.wikipedia.org)
• Biden’s presidency ended on January 20, 2025; Kamala Harris’s term as vice president ended at the same time. She never assumed the presidency by succession.(en.wikipedia.org)
• Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th president on January 20, 2025 and has served in that role since then.(en.wikipedia.org)

Because Harris neither succeeded Biden as president nor won the 2024 election, and Donald Trump instead became (and remains) president, the prediction that “we are going to get President Kamala Harris” as the outcome of the 2024 cycle is wrong.

Joe Biden initially ran for re‑election in 2024 but withdrew from the race on July 21, 2024, and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his preferred successor. (en.wikipedia.org)

Following Biden’s withdrawal and endorsement, Harris announced her own presidential campaign and quickly consolidated delegate support, becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee. (en.wikipedia.org)

Through a virtual roll‑call vote in early August, Harris was formally confirmed as the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nominee (with sources noting the official nomination on August 5–6, 2024). (en.wikipedia.org)

No other Democrat—such as Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Michelle Obama, or an outsider—secured the nomination; the ticket was headed by Kamala Harris, not by any alternative candidate. (en.wikipedia.org)

Since the final nominee was Kamala Harris, one of the two outcomes the prediction allowed (Biden or Harris, with no one else), the prediction that “it’s either going to be Harris or Biden” was borne out by events.

Available evidence shows that Texas has not enacted any law or regulation that bans or technically disables browser incognito/private-browsing modes, whether for pornography or any other content.

What Texas did do after July 2024:

1. Porn age‑verification law (HB 1181) – Texas requires commercial pornography sites to use “reasonable age verification methods” (e.g., government ID or transactional data) to ensure users are 18+, with significant civil penalties for non‑compliance. The statute regulates websites, not browsers, and its text makes no reference to incognito or private browsing modes.

   • Bill analysis and press releases describe ID‑based age checks and damages but do not mention disabling private browsing. (capitol.texas.gov)
   • In Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2025 upheld this age‑verification requirement, again with no discussion of banning or altering browser features. (theverge.com)
   • Some major sites (e.g., Pornhub) chose to block access from Texas entirely, but that is a business response to HB 1181, not a state prohibition on incognito mode. (texasattorneygeneral.gov)

2. Children’s online safety / social media laws (HB 18, SCOPE Act) – These impose age‑verification, parental‑consent, and content‑filtering obligations on platforms for minors, and have been partly enjoined on First Amendment grounds. Again, they govern platform behavior and data practices, not the availability of private browsing modes in browsers. (en.wikipedia.org)

3. Litigation over Google’s Incognito mode – Texas sued Google alleging Incognito/private browsing misled users about privacy, and later reached a large settlement. The case framed Incognito as a deceptive trade practice but did not result in any statute or regulation banning the feature, and the appeals court dismissed the DTPA suit for lack of jurisdiction before the settlement. The settlement terms focus on money and disclosures, and news reports explicitly note it does not require product changes. (texasattorneygeneral.gov)

Positive evidence that incognito remains lawful and in active use in Texas includes, for example, a University of Texas site that recommends visitors try private/incognito mode if a legislative dashboard fails to load—something that would be impossible if incognito browsing were banned by state law. (reports.utexas.edu)

Across Texas statutes and recent court decisions, there is no indication of any law that prohibits, disables, or uniquely targets browser incognito/private‑browsing modes for pornography or any other content. Texas has pursued age‑ and content‑based regulation of websites and aggressive privacy enforcement against companies, not a technical ban on browser private modes. Therefore, Chamath’s prediction that “Texas is going to ban incognito mode” did not come true.

U.S. data since early July 2024 show a slowdown but not the start of a broad, sustained recession.

• No official U.S. recession has been declared. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which is the standard arbiter of U.S. business cycles, has not announced any new recession peaks or troughs after the COVID-related cycle dated around 2020; its announcements page lists no recession starting in or after 2024. (nber.org)
• GDP kept growing through late 2024. BEA figures show real GDP grew 3.1% (annual rate) in Q3 2024 and about 2.4% in Q4 2024, with full‑year 2024 real GDP up 2.8% over 2023—consistent with expansion, not recession. (apps.bea.gov)
• Early‑2025 weakness was brief, not a sustained downturn. An advance BEA estimate showed real GDP dipping at a –0.3% annual rate in Q1 2025, but data from BEA/Moody’s Analytics indicate GDP rose again in Q2 2025, breaking the pattern needed for the common “two negative quarters” rule of thumb and falling short of the NBER’s broader recession criteria. (bea.gov)
• Overall 2024–2025 narrative is slowdown, not recession. Official releases and major news coverage describe the U.S. economy as growing at around 2.8% in 2024 with continued (though slower) growth into 2025, helped by strong consumer spending and AI‑related investment, rather than entering a contractionary phase. (apnews.com)

Because more than a year has passed since the July 2024 prediction and neither official dating committees nor macro data show the onset of a U.S. recession, the forecast that a recession was imminently “on the offing” based on Rick’s Cabaret stock performance has not come true.

The prediction stated that Democrats would not replace Joe Biden as their 2024 presidential nominee. In reality, Biden suspended his reelection campaign on July 21, 2024, and endorsed Kamala Harris. She quickly secured delegate support, became the presumptive nominee, and was formally chosen as the Democratic presidential nominee via a virtual roll call in early August and then at the Democratic National Convention, heading the ticket in the November 5, 2024 general election. (en.wikipedia.org)