John Harwood Asks Biden If Fox News/Elon Musk Are ‘Driving The Threat’ To Democracy
ProPublica reporter and veteran White House correspondent John Harwood asked President Joe Biden if outlets like Fox News and Elon Musk’s Twitter are “driving the threat” to democracy that Biden has been speaking out about.
Harwood sat down with the president for a lengthy interview for ProPublica that was published Sunday and which covered a variety of topics. But the subject of democracy — about which the president had just given a speech — was a frequent topic.
Harwood asked the president about the spread of misinformation by “Fox News and others,” and Musk’s “lowering guardrails” at Twitter are fueling the threat to democracy — to which Biden replied with agreement but also with a broader critique of the media and online landscapes:
JOHN HARWOOD: Do you think that right wing media outlets, Fox News and others that have spread lies about the 2020 election, do they drive the threat that you’re concerned about or are they simply reflecting sentiment that already exists in the country?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: They do both. Look, they’re not editors anymore. That’s one of the big problems. There’s nobody telling. And I gave my word. I never would reveal who. But I’ve spoken to at least half a dozen serious reporters over the last six or eight years who say to me, I’m worried if I do not– say and do something that gets me, raises the issue up, I’m not going to get a hit. And if I don’t get a hit on television, I don’t my pay, my. I mean, the whole dynamic has changed. I’m no expert in the press, but it’s changed.
JOHN HARWOOD: What about what Elon Musk has done to Twitter, lowering guardrails against misinformation? Does that contribute to it?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Yeah, it does. Look, one of the things that I said to you when I thought I wasn’t going to run, I was going to write a book about the changes taking place, and most of us directed over the years, these fundamental changes in society by changing technology. Gutenberg printing The printing press changed the way Europeans could talk to one another all the way to today. Where where do people get their news? They, they they you know, they go to the Internet. They they they they go online. They go. And you have no notion whether it’s true or not.
Watch above via ProPublica.
