Team Biden Has Burnt Its Credibility to Ashes
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
When Joe Biden ascended to the presidency nearly four years ago, much of the media — with some notable, laudable exceptions — resumed the role it takes on when Democrats come to power.
To so many in the press, the Democrats are the “good guys,” whose claims merit amplification and need less vetting.
“Psaki Promises to Share ‘Accurate Info’ (How Refreshing),” read one celebratory CNN chyron back in 2021. Of course, the Biden White House did not always share “accurate info.” Like his predecessors, Biden and his comms shop have lied and lied often, even if it’s not with the same nerve and frequency as Donald Trump and his team did and will again if he moves back into the Oval Office.
But last Thursday’s debate between Biden and Trump marked the end of the former’s cushy relationship with the press. The president’s performance not only tanked his reelection bid, it burnt his credibility to ashes.
For years now, Biden’s staff have publicly vouched for his fitness to be president, dismissing any and all who raised concerns. “That is not a question that we should be even asking,” bristled White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre after fielding a question about Biden’s stamina back in 2022. “I can’t even keep up with him.”
“I would put the president’s stamina, the president’s wisdom, ability to get this done on behalf of the American people, against anyone,” she submitted in November of last year.
When Axios’s Alex Thompson reported on Biden’s relatively open schedule for a president last spring, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jen O’Malley Dillon — who’s now the chairwoman of Biden’s reelection campaign — responded to a request for comment with a one-word rebuke: “False.”
When Special Counsel Robert Hur observed that Biden was no longer able to recall the years that he served as vice president or when his son Beau Biden died, Biden professed to be outraged that Hur would ask him about his late son. It was later revealed that Biden, not Hur, brought up Beau.
And when The Wall Street Journal published a story on Biden’s declining abilities last month, his campaign derided it as a a “hit piece.”
At the debate, Team Biden’s lies were definitively exposed as just that.
And the press decided that it had been duped for the last time.
“I can tell you that the White House’s response every single time has come up for three and a half years has been to deflect, to gaslight, to not tell the truth, not just to reporters, not just to other Democrats, but even at times to themselves about the president’s limitations at his age,” noted Thompson the morning after.
“They were not forthright with other Democrats, they weren’t, at times, forthright with themselves, and that is why Democrats are in full freakout mode, because what they saw is finally what they have been obscuring,” he added.
Still, Biden World continues to fall back on the tired lies of yesteryear.
“Not only does the President perform around the clock, but he maintains a schedule that tires younger aides, including foreign trips into active war zones, and he proves he has that capacity by delivering tangible results that pundits had declared impossible,” raved White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates earlier this week. Does Biden juggle while doing cartwheels uphill, too?
On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Biden — despite his public pronouncements that he will remain in the presidential race until the end — had a conversation with a “key ally” in which he raised the possibility of stepping aside.
“This claim is absolutely false. If The New York Times had provided us with more than 7 minutes to comment we would have told them so,” complained Bates moments after the story went live.
Independent journalist Josh Barro spoke for the entirety of the Fourth Estate when he shot back, “Why would anyone believe statements from this White House? You’re the same guy who said Biden keeps a schedule that exhausts young staffers.”
For Biden, there’s no going back to the pre-debate status quo; not just because the country is now painfully aware of the president’s diminished condition, but because it now understands that it can’t believe a word that comes out of his or his flacks’ mouths.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
