This week’s Liberal Media Scream shows that when some inside the Washington press bubble air concerns from outside the Beltway, there are those ready to push them back in line.
When, on Sunday’s Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd said swing voters he talks to “all think” President Joe Biden is “too old to run again,” panelist Yamiche Alcindor pushed back with the latest Biden talking point: “The key issue will be whether or not them thinking President Biden is too old outweighs them thinking that the future of our democracy is on the line.”
The Washington correspondent for NBC News and host of PBS’s Washington Week argued that “when I talk to voters, even Democrats who say, 'Biden, he's a little slower, he’s a little bit quieter, I’m not sure if I want to back him.' When they think about the state of our democracy, they’re like, 'That's the bigger issue here.'”
From the Sept. 11 Meet the Press on NBC:
CHUCK TODD: The Biden situation, you know I’ve asked this question to swing voters all over the country. Some of them are Democrats, some are independents. And they’ve all said the same answer. They all think he’s too old to run again.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, the key issue will be whether or not them thinking President Biden is too old outweighs them thinking that the future of our democracy is on the line. When I talk to voters, even Democrats who say, "Biden, he's a little slower, he’s a little bit quieter, I’m not sure if I want to back him." When they think about the state of our democracy, they’re like, "That's the bigger issue here." In our NBC poll, we saw people say the threats to democracy are their No. 1 thing, even above cost of living. So I think if you’re a Democrat, even if you’re Joe Biden, looking at this and saying, “OK, I understand people think maybe I should be a little bit more lively,” you’re still thinking they use the words “unrecognizable,” “distrust,” and that there should be some compromise.
Those are words that I think are probably worse for Republicans, especially when you think of, while we might have a minority of Republicans who don’t believe that 2020 was fair, they’re the people with the loudest voices, right? They’re the people who are still winning the elections. That’s where the candidates are. And I think that, to me, is probably signaling that Republicans have a bigger problem here.
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “How very convenient that the attitude of the press corps toward Biden and supporters of Donald Trump matches Alcindor’s pushback. They cannot accept that people across the country see Biden as too old, and so she reverts to trying to twist some anecdotal polling answers in order to show more really are upset by what journalists are obsessed with: Republicans focused on election integrity.”
Rating: THREE out of FIVE SCREAMS.