Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher Lashes Out at CNN Over ‘Irresponsible’ Coverage of Their Own Biden Poll Results

Mediaite writer and editor Tommy Christopher told SiriusXM host and MSNBC author Dean Obeidallah that CNN really set his “hair on fire” this week for how “irresponsible” their coverage was on the network’s latest poll about President Joe Biden and the 2024 election.

Christopher was Obeidallah’s guest on the Friday edition of The Dean Obeidallah Show, during which he let CNN have it over their coverage.

Obeidallah asked Christopher whether there was anything particular this week that “made you go like, your jaw literally drop or you look at this and you go, I can’t believe this is on TV right now.”

“I’ll tell you what. You know, my sort of most recent, the thing that’s got my hair set on fire is the way CNN has been covering the latest Joe Biden poll. I hate to say it,” said Christopher. “I mean, it’s like, you know, they have this sort of yearning. A lot of mainstream outlets have this sort of same desire to burnish their credibility and make themselves look fair by jumping all over Joe Biden whenever they can to show that they’re fair because they think that makes them look fair.”

The CNN poll was chock full of negative results for the president, which CNN discussed so extensively it prompted Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy to sample them on Friday. This montage from Mediaite’s Caleb Howe has an even wider sample:

Christopher said that degree of alarm in reporting on the poll was “sort of irresponsible” on CNN’s part, and talked about his particular criticisms with Obeidallah.

The two also talked about Donald Trump’s prospects going forward, with a decidedly dark future in mind for the ex-president.

OBEIDALLAH: There have been any things recently because you’re writing about all the things on everything. CNN and MSNBC but on Fox and Newsmax, anything recently that made you go, like your jaw literally drop or you look at this and you go, I can’t believe this is on TV right now. And that might be a typical day for you. I’m not sure. But what did anything stand out for you?

CHRISTOPHER: I’ll tell you what. You know, my sort of most recent, the thing that’s got my hair set on fire is the way CNN has been covering the latest Joe Biden poll. I hate to say it. I mean, it’s like, you know, they have this sort of yearning. A lot of mainstream outlets have this sort of same desire to burnish their credibility and make themselves look fair by jumping all over Joe Biden whenever they can to show that they’re fair because they think that makes them look fair.

And so I read the poll. I’m not going to try and say it was a good poll. But I mean, seriously, the way that everybody at CNN, almost everybody at CNN is basically jizzing in their pants over this thing. They’re like, “Oh, my God, Joe Biden’s finished! Oh, look, they, people think he’s old!”. Like that’s new, you know?

OBEIDALLAH: Right.

CHRISTOPHER: And, you know, there’s there’s criticisms, substantive criticisms that can be made about that poll. I’m not going to make them. I hate people when people say, oh, this is skewed. But look, honestly, I think Kate Bedingfield, who used to be the comms chief there, she made some really great points on CNN’s air. I think she was the only one, though. And like, it shouldn’t be her job to say, okay, well, here’s all the things you didn’t ask about that could have put this in better context. Like, you know, all the, they were saying the same thing in the midterms, but then, you know, issues like abortion swamped Republicans.

OBEIDALLAH: Right.

CHRISTOPHER: So they didn’t ask about that. They didn’t bring that up. In my opinion, and this is a harder thing to you know, this was like a push poll. This was them saying like, okay, if you ask people, hey, do you think 86 is too old to be president? You know, you’re begging the question. But like, you know, the other thing about this poll that bothered me was the stuff about Hunter Biden. But you read the poll.

OBEIDALLAH: I read I read articles about the polls. Sure. I didn’t go through every line of the poll, but yes. And about the doing business with his father…

CHRISTOPHER: There’s ways to do a poll to get a clearer picture. And so they said 61% of people believe that Joe Biden knew about his son’s business dealings. Now, a lot of pollsters, when they get a question, do a question like that, they’ll then follow up and say, “Okay. But even Republicans who are investigating the president have said out loud with their mouth holes that they don’t have evidence of this. Does that change how you feel?”

And it’s the same thing with the age thing, you know, after you know, how many months of them saying Biden is old Biden is old Biden is old. What do you think is going to happen? So and also, it was a very small poll, a small sample, a high margin of error. And so, you know, I think it’s sort of irresponsible the way they’ve been covering it.

OBEIDALLAH: … I think it’s also interesting that, you know, I’m saying anything make jump out at you and you pick CNN because on some level, we’re used to Fox News or Newsmax being dishonest. It’s when CNN does something where you’re like, this is really troubling because mainstream people, not partisan people are watching this and they see this.

Watch above via SiriusXM’s The Dean Obeidallah Show.

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