Joe Biden campaign criticizes media for overemphasizing debate performance
By: Dominick Mastrangelo and Amie Parnes (The Hill)
The Biden camp is working overtime to calm donors, not voters. And down ballot Democrats are more worried about how Biden's poor performance will affect funding than how it will affect public opinion.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
President Biden's reelection campaign is attacking the media, saying it is overplaying coverage of Biden's bad debate performance while not covering positive news for the president.
On a Zoom call with donors Monday evening, Biden's deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks derided the press directly, saying "the media has spent a ton of time blowing this out of proportion. We are not going to be in a defensive posture on this campaign."
The campaign also has gone on the attack in fundraising messages to supporters.
"Did you see the awesome clips of our supporters on the tarmac doing the Cupid Shuffle at 2am on the night of the debate?" a Biden fundraising email from over the weekend read. "Well, no, probably not, because the media is busy hyperventilating and trying to manifest drama to boost ratings."
Biden's shaky debate performance has raised questions about his viability as the presumptive Democratic nominee. Concerns about the 81-year-old president's age were apparent before the debate, but his muddled performance against former President Trump has amplified them.
On Tuesday, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (Texas) became the first sitting House Democrat to call on him to step down.
In trying to deflect the criticism, the administration has turned to a familiar foe: the news media.
Criticism of the media began while the debate was still taking place, as some criticized the lack of fact checking from CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash when it came to Trump's repeated false claims.
Tapper himself pushed back on the campaign's blame game this week.
"There is a pattern of Democratic officials seemingly trying to convince you, the public, to not believe what you saw and what you heard with your eyes and with your ears," the anchor said Monday on his daily news show, adding it was not "honest" to dismiss the president's debate performance as a one-off event, as his top aides have.
Some observers have drawn parallels between team Biden attacking the media in recent days and the long-standing attacks on journalists that have come from his opponent, a strategy that has proven to energize Trump's base in recent political cycles.
"The most important part of a political fight is contrast," said one top Democratic strategist. "The press is not popular, and the press is an obvious opponent in the public relations fight."
But others say such a strategy could be risky and would only lead to more problems for the president's reelection chances.
"It's indicative of their weakened position," said Cayce Myers, a public relations expert who teaches in the school of communications at Virginia Tech. "It's clearly a deflection mechanism and the media don't typically respond well to this type of criticism, which in this case is unfounded."
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday the administration was merely looking to "turn the page" on the postdebate fallout and defended how it has responded to postdebate media coverage.
"We have a right to push back. It's a give and take," she said during a briefing with reporters. "This is an exercise of democracy, if there's some reporting, we don't believe it to be true, I don't see anything wrong with [push back] … if we want to share our side of things, we do so."
Republican strategist Susan Del Percio, who does not support Trump, said campaigns that are losing often take a hostile approach toward the press.
"It's what you do when you don't have anything else," Del Percio told The Hill.
While many of Trump's attacks have sought to discredit specific prominent journalists and basic facts about him, the approach taken by those advocating against the press on behalf of Biden has been different.
"Trump tries to discredit the media in their existence as non-truth tellers," Del Percio said. "But keeping a story alive based on truth and interviews is not the same thing. The media is the easy target … but the Democrats right now are the ones keeping the story alive."
One Democratic strategist said the media isn't to blame for what happened on Thursday, "but the media amplification has made it worse." This strategist, however, said the coverage was "not out of bounds or unwarranted."
The strategist said that while Biden has generally maintained a good relationship with members of the media during his time in office, he's always felt "some disrespect" dating back to the previous election cycles when media outlets were writing him off as he struggled to win contests during the Democratic primary.
"He's never forgotten that," the strategist said.
There are some signs the White House and Biden's campaign are still willing to play ball with top media outlets despite the frosty relations.
ABC, which is slated to host the second presidential debate this fall, announced on Tuesday that Biden would sit for a one-on-one interview with anchor George Stephanopoulos that will air over the holiday weekend.
Some observers note it's a step in the right direction for a campaign that is better served focusing their messaging on issues important to voters rather than grumbling about the tone of the press he is receiving.
"I don't think it'll be super effective if he spends the rest of the campaign, assuming he stays in the campaign, making the press an issue," said Mark Conrad, a professor of law and ethics at Fordham University. "You would think Donald Trump would be the issue for Joe Biden. You're not voting for the press; you're voting for a candidate for president."
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After all, American democracy is all about the money. Democrats can fix voters jumping ship when the votes are counted (or not). But losing donor dollars just can't be fixed by rigging an election.
He's not wrong. There are 2 ways to look at the candidates during the debate. Appearance and content.
And Traitor Joe stood there gape mouthed and mumbling. Without a script, he's useless. If the President can't get simple thoughts verbalized coherently, the world will walk all over him (kind of like they are right now).
Have you ever even listened to Trump ramblings during his interviews, rallies, or even postings?
Another deflection. Anything to get away from talking about the failure you are supporting.
“Despite Setting Low Bar…”
The bar has been razed…
But but but Trump the best you can do?
Who am I supporting? Other than "anyone except Trump", who precisely am I supporting?
It is the easiest, most obvious, and best way to point out the hypocrisy from right wingers posting on this forum.
Now you are trying to deflect about your deflection. Care to go for tripling down?
That would be Joe since you plan to support him with your vote.
Prove it.
There is no bar too low it seems with the former 'president' and the maga cult
As I have been saying, and as kind of stated in Oz's clip above, the former 'president' is held to no standards whatsoever
Did you miss where I said "failure"?
The Traitor Joe campaign is merely upset that the media is finally waking up to the travesty that the people have been seeing for quite a while now. The media is no longer providing excuses for a doddering fool mumbling his way through speeches then needing assistance getting off stage. Provided he doesn't turn into a roomba and wander aimlessly around the stage.
And because of Traitor Joes declining mental and physical abilities, donors are slowly starting to see the problem as well.
A hail mary attempt to try to show Traitor Joe isn't experiencing declining mental and physical abilities. It's almost a given that there will be scripted questions to scripted answers.
Of course they are shocked at the reporting, they are absolutely amazed that they are showing some integrity and didn't expect it. Biden is not mentally able to perform the duties of president and the only people who don't realize it are his sycophant cult followers.
I can wait to start seeing all the positive human interest stories about Kamala that the media is going to have to start running, and expect 2nd dude Doug to start hitting all the talk shows to try to convince the American people that Kamala isn't just your average whore who slept her way into a position she wasn't qualified to hold.
Not to mention the accusations of racism and misogyny if you don't vote for her
Didn't she run as a hispanic in one election and a black for VP?
Race, like gender, can be fluid for many of our friends on the left.
You know, you're right. They are the only ones that claim that nonsense.
The right may stop celebrating this if Michelle Obama decides to enter the race…
I've heard that Michelle Obama is the only one who's polling shows she could beat Trump in the presidential election. Despite the numerous times she's stated she has no interest in getting into politics, she would have a big machine behind her. But I think she would also run into issues like the below statement she made.
IMO it's thinking like this that has brought us to the current situation where politicians in Washington align with their political party much more than they do with the people they are supposed to represent.