As we previously reported, after President Joe Biden took a tumble off his bicycle during a Saturday bike ride in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, some in the mainstream media immediately jumped into excuse-making mode over the embarrassing moment.
CNN’s Chris Cillizza, of course, lead the way in writing it off as no big deal in the scheme of things, despite the fact that when President Trump took a slow walk down a ramp after giving a June 2020 speech at West Point, Cillizza himself went out of his way to explain how the story “mattered” in the context of Trump’s overall health and ability to lead.
Let’s also not forget how some in the press fretted about how Trump sometimes took sips from a water bottle while holding it with both hands, including during his West Point commencement address.
But Joe Biden is president now, and reporters by and large have been under Code Protect the Precious for much of his presidency. But as we draw closer to the 2022 midterms and as a growing number of polls show a majority of voters have concerns about Biden’s age and mental acuity, the murmurings about Biden’s health are growing louder and going more mainstream – bike fall or not – and that had CNN White House correspondent and leading Democrat apologist John Harwood seething during a segment of Brian Stelter’s “Reliable Sources” program on Sunday where they discussed the elephant in the room.
During a back and forth exchange with Stelter, Harwood falsely claimed that this issue was solely pushed by “right-wing media,” ignoring the fact that during the 2019-2020 Democratic presidential campaign season, a number of Biden’s opponents and even some in the media raised questions about Biden’s fitness to serve as president and commander in chief considering how he looked and sometimes acted confused and out of sorts while on the campaign trail.
Harwood also claimed, without evidence, that though his critics believed Biden was not fit to do his job, reporters could see that “the gears of his mind are working” when Biden interacted with them, which maybe would be a persuasive argument if Biden spent more than five minutes a week engaging with them in between the calculated interruptions from his handlers and the frequent jaunts to his home state for “time away”:
Without taking a stand on whether he’s too old to run for reelection, let me just run through what is true, what’s false, what’s gets conflated. What’s true is the president is a hugely taxing job, mentally and physically.
And Joe Biden is old. He doesn’t talk or walk as smoothly as he once did. That suggests challenges. And when you get into your 80s, which he’s about to do, the risk of health problems grows with every year.
On the other hand, what’s false is that he is not capable of doing the job right now, or he’s not mentally in tune with the demands of the job. Anybody, any aide who engages with him, or reporter, we can see this, the gears of his mind are working, that is an issue pushed by right-wing media, but it’s not correct.
And what gets conflated is this, President Biden is in the political position right now, and because he’s old, people think he’s weak because he’s old. His biggest political problem right now is five dollar a gallon gas. Gas is not $5 a gallon because Joe Biden’s old. His legislative program is not stymied in Congress because Joe Biden is old. It’s because he’s got a 50/50 Senate, and one of the members of that Democratic Senate comes from a Trump plus 39 state.
Watch:
The DNC’s — I mean, CNN’s @JohnJHarwood: “What’s false is that [Biden] is not capable of doing the job … Anybody, any aide who engages with him, or reporters, we can see this, the gears of his mind are working. That is an issue pushed by right-wing media, but it’s not correct.” pic.twitter.com/FwiPtobeUq
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 20, 2022
I think it’s safe to say that Joe Biden could be caught with the smoking gun weapon in a murder case and John Harwood and his colleagues at CNN would come up with some bizarre, fantastical excuse for why what we saw wasn’t what we really saw. Then again, when you consider the fact that Harwood crossed the line in 2015 while still a reporter at CNBC by playing favorites with the then-Democratic candidate for president Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta on multiple occasions during her failed campaign, none of this should really come as a surprise:
And then there’s John Harwood of CNBC, who consistently tweets misleading and critical takes on the economy. Harwood’s exchanges with Podesta included gloating about his questions at a 2015 GOP primary debate, among many others 5/ https://t.co/v5MbbQN2tohttps://t.co/wT1fA8qwxu pic.twitter.com/RNnfenkCAJ
— James Hasson (@JamesHasson20) August 18, 2019
NYT & CNBC “journalist” John Harwood email to John Podesta wondering why so many want to interview Reptillary. pic.twitter.com/sem7szMtUO
— Dennis (@DL1651) October 19, 2016
Recently, we learned that CNN’s new head honcho Chris Licht is going to be monitoring on-air staff for “partisan tone” because the struggling “news” network reportedly doesn’t want to be viewed that way anymore. If that’s the case, Harwood better be fine-tuning his LinkedIn profile and resume, because I’d rank him in the top five most liberally biased reporters at CNN without question, right next to Stelter and Jim Acosta.
For more on Harwood’s “greatest hits” (or as I call them – the “lowlight reel”) click here.
Flashback –>> Watch: CNN+ Guest Delivers Uncomfortable Coup de Grace to Brian Stelter During Live Broadcast
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