The Right Steers How The Press Talks About President Biden’s Age
To some extent, I understand the frustration White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre exhibited during a press briefing last week as reporters asked her about a viral video that sparked speculation that President Joe Biden had frozen onstage during a recent campaign fundraiser with former President Barack Obama in Los Angeles.
Even before then, the Biden administration has had to contend with a 3,000-word hit piece from The Wall Street Journalthat claimed Biden “appears slower” and “has both good moments and bad ones” based solely on the word of Republicans in Congress. As reported by Popular Information, that piece was then repackaged by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns or operates 185 local television stations across the country. (Sinclair has denied any wrongdoing for that, so please don’t email me, people who work over there.)
Those deepfake videos floating around the internet that feature Biden freezing in front of world leaders at the G7 Summit have made their impact, too. Plus, the other Rupert Murdoch-owned entities — the New York Postand Fox — have stoked their own audiences with fears about Biden’s physical fitness and cognitive abilities based on equally dubious evidence/reporting.
“Let’s not forget President Obama, President Biden have a relationship. They are friends,” Jean-Pierre explained to reporters. “They’re like family to each other, and I think that’s what you saw. You saw the president put his hand … on the back of President Biden and they walked off the stage after taking questions … from Jimmy Kimmel. That is what you saw.”
OK, they were two friends onstage together, but Jean-Pierre is sidestepping a bit and giving the Fox prime-time block way too much material to play with.
Biden is actively fighting a disinformation campaign designed to make him appear old and feeble to the public while those same forces help excuse former President Donald Trump for repeatedly short-circuiting on the campaign trail. Meanwhile, Trump benefits from the de facto assistance of the mainstream press, since many outlets fail to cover concerns about his cognitive abilities and physical ability with the same vigor as they do Biden’s.
Earlier this year, an ABC News/Ipsos poll showed that 86% of Americans think Biden is too old to serve another term as president, compared to 59% of Americans who think both he and Trump are too old. Considering Biden and Trump are only three years apart in age, some of the lopsided treatment and its effects — at least when it comes to campaign polling — has to be attributable to press bias and disinformation.
Even so, given that voters have expressed legitimate concerns about Biden’s age for years now, shouldn’t the administration have developed stronger answers to obvious questions that will be posed whenever the 81-year-old president steps outside?
As of now, though, the forces largely driving coverage and questions about Biden’s age are right-wing agitators in social and traditional media.
Jean-Pierre is correct that there are several recent videos of Biden “freezing” at public events that are “done in bad faith” and part of a disinformation campaign promoted by “right-wing critics.”
And there is reason to worry about the deceptive attacks against Biden, as we don’t need repeats of what happened to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign. (For what it’s worth, Democrats have former President Bill Clinton to blame for the wealthy conservative’s ability to buy a bunch of TV stations/networks and publications and spew their propaganda.)
But in the meantime, the White House should be better prepared for the expected pile-on.
In response to a separate clip of Biden at a recent Juneteenth concert at the White House where he seemingly stood stoic as others clapped and sang along, Jean-Pierre replied, “He didn’t dance. I didn’t think dancing was a health issue.”
She described it as a “weird thing” to focus on.
It’s in Jean-Pierre’s job description to characterize such worries as “weird,” but it must be maddening to have to come up with so many answers for concerns about why an old man moves like an old man. For all the chatter of fake videos, there are plenty of legitimate images of Biden that spark the same fears as the distorted ones.
Joe Biden is 81 years old, and if reelected, would be 86 by the end of his second term.
A recent report from Axios reveals that in spite of growing concerns from senior Democrats, Biden continues to believe that voter concerns about democracy, the insurrection on Jan. 6, and Trump’s character will lead to his own reelection.
It is reasonable to interrogate Biden’s supposition by asking him and his campaign that if democracy is so important, isn’t it too risky to put the fate of the republic on the shoulders of a man turning 82 in November?
I wish this issue were being covered more seriously and even-handedly by the mainstream press. I wouldn’t mind fewer questions about video clips and more about health records and thoughts on gerontocracies. And more of a push to get Biden to do more interviews. His people may not like it, but more interviews could help assuage questions and concerns about how old he is.
As of now, though, the forces largely driving coverage and questions about Biden’s age are right-wing agitators in social and traditional media.
Such hijacking might pose a nuisance to Biden and his supporters, but more broadly, allowing them to lead is a detriment to all concerned voters.
