Immediately after Biden's disastrous performance at last week's debate, CNN anchor John King pulled back the political curtain in a rare admittance of political trouble.
“Right now, as we speak, there is a deep, a wide, and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party,” King advised told fellow panelists. “Some of those conversations include should we go to the White House and ask the president to step aside.”
King and other journalists knew about that panic because their phones were blowing up during the debate itself, when Democrat politicians, party officials, pundits, and fellow journalists were throwing a collective fit over Biden’s performance.
Chuck Todd, the NBC political director, described a similar behind-the-scenes panic on the other end of his phone.
“There’s a full-on panic about this performance,” Todd told a post-debate panel. “Not like, oh, this is recoverable, it is more of a, okay, he’s gotta step aside. There’s a lot of that chatter.”
Same media trotted out 'cheap fake'
Tim Graham, of the Media Research Center, tells AFN the news media most recently backed itself into a corner when it willingly ran with the “cheap fakes” narrative that came from the White House.
“In the weeks leading up to the debate, the Democrats said it's a ‘cheap fake’ to say Biden's failing,” Graham says. “And then, right after the debate, it's like the Democrats are all panicky because he failed. Which part of the news media looks dumber?”
Graham says the panic was evident the very next morning, at a Las Vegas campaign rally headed by Kamala Harris. During that event, a New York Times reporter was interviewing a Biden supporter who commented he should step down. A campaign aide immediately ended the interview.
“Apparently,” Graham observes, “they think that if you’re at a Biden event, a reporter can’t ask questions that lead voters to say negative things.”
‘Morning Joe’ highlights panic
The media’s shocked reaction to Biden was perhaps most evident on the “Morning Joe” program on MSNBC. In a two-minute dialogue, stunned-looking co-host Joe Scarborough fawned over Biden, praised his first term as president, and thanked him for “saving this country” from Donald Trump in 2020.
Then came the pivot.
“I think we have to ask the same questions of [Biden] that we have asked of Donald Trump since 2016,” Scarborough said. “And that is, if he were CEO and he turned in a performance like that, would any corporation in America, any Fortune 500 corporation in America keep him on as CEO?”
Scarborough’s co-host and wife, Mike Brzezinski, appeared uncomfortable during her co-hosts’s dialogue. When it was her turn to speak, she urged everyone to “calm down” over the push to replace Biden as the nominee.
“By the way, Mika, everyone’s calm here,” Scarborough replied. “You’re the only one raising your voice. Everybody is calm here.”
On Monday, four days after the debate, Brzezinski appeared on the “Morning Joe” program – this time alone. She suggested there are reasons for Biden's “abysmal debate performance,” such as his traveling schedule, even though Biden had been hidden away for days to prepare for the debate. She also blamed his behavior on the late-night timing, which is actually a nod to “sundowning” in dementia patients.
“I’ll also say America needs an explanation from Joe Biden,” she concluded, “and reassurance that the other night was a one-time event and not part of a larger problem.”
