During his “interview” with Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday night, Joe Biden claimed that Americans weren’t appreciating all that he’s achieving because he just hasn’t been able to communicate his message effectively. But even his effort to communicate that didn’t make a lot of sense when he spoke about getting “clicks on the nightly news” and he rambled on, unable to complete a coherent sentence.
Biden says there’s a lot of “major things” he’s done, he just hasn’t “been able to communicate it in a way that is, uh, um…”
He then starts rambling about reporters getting “clicks on the nightly news” and they cut to commercial. pic.twitter.com/uTiEu495C2
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 9, 2022
But when Biden is saying his message is not being communicated effectively, if you thought he was apologizing or thinking that his team was admitting they had a problem in that regard, that’s not exactly what he’s saying. What he’s saying is that the media isn’t being fair to him and that’s why Americans are confused and don’t recognize his greatness and all the wonderful things he’s done.
Incredibly, he believes the liberal media is just not doing him justice. Not only does he believe that, he whined to them in an off-the-record session during a trip on Air Force One where “He used much of his time with reporters to criticize the quality and tenor of press coverage of his administration.”
There is growing frustration by the president and his family that he is not receiving the kind of generally more positive coverage they believe he deserves — that too often attention is focused on staff turnover and poor poll numbers and not a robust jobs market and America’s relatively strong economic recovery.
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“His family?” Can we translate that to Jill being upset? This very complaint gives away two big parts of the problem. First, it isn’t the messaging, it’s his bad policies. Second, it means he hasn’t been listening to what the American people have been saying to him in poll after poll. His priority isn’t how he’s messed everything up or how that has hurt Americans, it’s how all of this is affecting him. It’s about how dare the media and the American people not fully appreciate him. Bottom line? Americans are hurting with inflation and gas prices — that should be what he’s concentrated on, not what people think of him.
But if he thought the media wasn’t accurately covering him, maybe Biden and his team should be looking at how they are communicating with the media. They are always rushing the media out of the room after any event/remarks. He rarely takes questions, and the Kimmel interview was the first such interview that he’s done in 120 days. Still, the media is largely reflexively favorable to him. But, as we reported, some of the media is losing patience with the way they’re being treated by the Biden team.
He hasn’t done a sit-down interview with The New York Times’ or Washington Post’s non-opinion sections since taking office, a departure from his former boss BARACK OBAMA, who regularly gave one-on-ones to the Times during his first year. Biden has similarly shut out major wire services like The Associated Press and Reuters. Though he’s given a handful of interviews to the major networks, he still hasn’t conducted a one-on-one with CNN (though he’s done several town hall appearances).
“I can’t think of a parallel situation – it’s the fifth president I’ve covered and the first one I haven’t interviewed,” said PETER BAKER, The New York Times’ chief White House correspondent. “They feel neither the obligation nor the opportunity.”
Baker added that the best White House reporting often isn’t the result of interviews with the president but that extended sit-downs remain an important function of accountability. “Reporters whining about not getting interviews is one of the least attractive elements of White House press corps,” he said. “But the president talks about defending democracy and that’s part of democracy too – answering questions from people not on your side.”
When the media talks about your off-the-record session in which you bash them, that also sounds like you might be ticking them off just a bit. Add one more instance now to the media increasingly throwing Biden under the bus.
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