President Biden went into office and immediately got sympathetic treatment from the mainstream media.
While being heavily criticized by the right, he got a long sympathetic ride with the media, thanks to some early wins, a unifying tone, and just that he was not Donald Trump.
All things considered, that is over at this point.
While nothing is similar to the conflicts between columnists and Trump—in both directions—Biden is beginning to get messed up. What had been incidentally fierce climate has transformed into a typhoon, and could reinforce into a storm.
At first, the press picked away at Biden’s performance on certain issues. But lately the political indictment of his tenure has become more sweeping.
Thus it was that Chuck Todd, the “Meet the Press” host, declared: “I think he’s got a pretty big credibility crisis on his hands.”
That is one stinging expression, conjuring up pictures of Vietnam, Watergate, and Iraq. For NBC’s political chief to say this on “Sunday Today” isn’t some mistake during an overheated cable debate.
Todd went through the reiteration: “The disastrous pullout from Afghanistan, which Biden had insisted would not resemble Saigon. The premature promise that everyone would be able to get Covid booster shots. The growing crisis at the border, where Biden’s policies have become a “magnet” for migrants. These problems intensified “after he said something basically the exact opposite,” Todd said.
When Jen Psaki went on “CBS Mornings” yesterday, she got unloaded on by co-host Gayle King.
Talking about foreign policy before the president’s U.N. speech, King unloaded:
“We can’t ignore what has happened before. We’re still getting hammered for how the withdrawal from Afghanistan happened..Many people believe it was time. It’s just the way that it was done. So we all agree with that. That’s not a good look. You look at what’s happening with immigration. You look at France now saying that they’ve been betrayed by the United States…What are we doing to justify or explain what appears to be very bad behavior on our part?”
Psaki answered that “we don’t see it that way” and defended Biden’s nuclear submarine deal with Australia, saying the frayed kinship with France will endure. “The president is the first to say you’ve got to work on relationships,” she said.
On “The View,” usually a support system for Democrats, a few panelists yesterday went off on images of horse-riding Border Patrol agents snatching Haitians and utilizing their animals to push the migrants back.
“This is what you do if an animal were infesting your yard,” Sara Haines said. “The way people are being treated on that to me is absolutely more disturbing and a little bit more hopeless than I want to feel about this.” Sunny Hostin added she is “so disappointed in the Biden administration today. So very disappointed.”
That word may summarize the media response to the Biden administration, which should take care of the multitude of issues left by the previous person through bipartisan cooperation.
And when you throw in Democratic infighting that is stalling and may even sink the president’s multitrillion-dollar legislation, he’s got some difficult situations going forward. “President Biden’s governing agenda is at risk of unraveling on Capitol Hill,” says the Washington Post. “The package could stall out, shrink dramatically — or even fail altogether,” says Politico. There’s even an impasse over the debt ceiling. And things will get even worse if virus cases continue to surge.
I know from long Beltway experience that presidents are once in a while riding as high or sinking as low as they would appear at a depiction on schedule. In the event that millions more get inoculated, if the foundation and-all the other things charge passes, if recollections of Afghanistan blur, Biden’s fortunes could ascend in the coming months.
But the press coverage will probably stay doubtful of him for a long time to come. What all these overlapping crises have in common is that the media are questioning Biden’s ability to do his job. Not just the is-he-mentally-confused-at-78 doubts, but whether he has the qualities to lead America and the world. When it comes to the media, Biden is finished getting automatic sympathy.