The “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC were in full spin mode for the Biden regime on their flagship Tuesday morning news shows ahead of the House hearing about Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Biden’s handling of classified documents, fretting the “controversial report” “sparked outrage and anger” in Bidenworld.
In the case of ABC and CBS, they implied the full Biden-Hur transcript — embargoed and released at 8:00 a.m. Eastern — showed Biden fully in control of his faculties.
Unsurprisingly, ABC’s Good Morning America was the worst, featuring chief White House correspondent and chief Biden apple polisher Mary Bruce.
On the transcript, Bruce boasted she “reviewed the full transcript myself” and while “there are moments where the President does have memory lapses” such as “his recall and description of his son Beau’s death,” Bruce swooned with a smile towards the end that this showed Biden’s just peachy:
BRUCE: But overall, George, I have to tell you, the image that you get of the President that you take away largely mirrors that of his public persona. He staunchly defends his handling of classified material, has detailed reelection of events from years ago. He is very conversational. He even jokes with the committee. And, yes, he does go on some — some lengthy tangents and tends to ramble, as Joe Biden does.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Mmhmm.
In the first hour, Bruce griped Hur wrote a report that “sparked outrage and anger with the President and the White House”, having left them “furious” that he described Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Bruce eagerly peddled White House talking points that they believed “that was gratuitous and inappropriate and overshadowed the fact that, unlike Donald Trump, President Biden did not obstruct this investigation and was exonerated.”
Her mood turned as she griped the hearing includes “some of Donald Trump’s closest allies in Congress” and Republicans are “eager to keep questions about the President’s age and mental fitness in the spotlight as we head to November.”
CBS Mornings co-host Tony Dokoupil tossed to senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang in the second hour by saying the transcript’s release was “a big deal” and “provides a more complete picture of some of the claims made in Hur’s...controversial report.”
Jiang’s initial description was far sanguine, but then she leapt to Biden’s defense by arguing Biden being unable to remember who packed up his files and moved them were “things that would likely be tricky for anyone to remember decades later”.
Worse yet, she hid behind the Biden-Trump comparison and falsely claimed Hur lied about the President not knowing when his son died.
While Biden knew the month and day, he struggled to recall the year, which would mean he forgot the date (click “expand”):
JIANG: According to that CBS News review of the interview transcript, President Biden acknowledged that he was disorganized, a bit of a pack rack, and, frankly, clueless about who was packing up his stuff, which included classified materials he said he did not mean to keep. The interview started on October 8, just one day after Hamas attacked Israel. It lasted for five hours and 10 minutes over the course of two days. Hur pressed Biden about how classified material ended up in his former Washington office and home in Wilmington, Delaware, going back to his time as senator and Vice President. Biden would leave papers on his desk and staff members would come in to clear them after he was done. He says he did not know how boxes of classified material ended up in his personal space, like in his garage. He also added, “we over-classified everything.” Biden also defended keeping a memo he wrote to President Barack Obama about the troop surge in Afghanistan, calling it confidential, but not highly classified, Tony.
DOKOUPIL: Very interesting. And, Weijia, of course, Hur’s report and the way he wrote, caused this significant political headache for Biden when Hur described the President as a “elderly man with a poor memory.” We all remember that. Does the transcript shed any light on that aspect of things?
JIANG: So, look, many of the details that Biden couldn’t recall — such as how boxes were backed up, how they were transported — those are things that would likely be tricky for anyone to remember decades later. It is notable, though, that Hur could not remember when his son Beau died. That’s just not true. The President correctly stated the date, May 30, but struggled to name the year. His lawyer quickly chimed that it was 2015. After the report’s release, Biden angrily responded, saying he thought the question wasn’t any of their damn business. But one thing is very clear from the transcript. Biden was cooperative throughout the entire interview process. Of course, one reason why Hur declined to prosecute him, Tony.
DOKOUPIL: Yeah, and a distinction between the case with the current President and the case with the former President.
In the first hour, correspondent Scott MacFarlane took time away from obsessing over January 6 to fret Hur “controversially” assessed Biden’s mental state and tried to distract viewers from Biden, harping on Trump’s own documents case and touting the CNN exclusive interview with one of the cooperating witnesses for Special Counsel Jack Smith.
While NBC’s Today didn’t return to Hur in the second hour, they had two segments in the first hour that stacked the table.
Chief White House correspondent Peter Alexander said Hur would “step into the spotlight today, certain to face tough questions”.
Claiming “fierce backlash” to Hur, Alexander touted Biden’s disastrous February 8 press conference as “damage control” and fretted that despite a “feisty State of the Union, President Biden is still trying to dispel voter concerns about his ability to serve a second term” while Trump has “seized on” Hur’s findings.
Co-host Savannah Guthrie and senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson gave their two cents, surmising what’s in it for the GOP and Democrats (click “expand”):
GUTHRIE: [C]learly, he really wants to take on his critics who said he said too much unnecessarily, with too much color, about the — the President’s mental state.
(....)GUTHRIE: Well, Republicans clearly see an opportunity here.
JACKSON: Yep.
GUTHRIE: That’s why they called him to testify. So, what is their approach today, and how do Democrats plan to counter it?
JACKSON: So, Republicans approach: hammer on the age issue, hammer on the memory lapses, hammer on whether there are any other instances where the President forget key details or key moments and the backdrop to that, of course, is this election year, Savannah, where as you know more than half of voters believe that they do have concerns about the President’s age and fitness for office. For Democrats, they’ll hit on a couple key things. Number one, the whole point of this report in the first place, which is that there will not be charges brought against President Biden and number two, expect them to lay out the very clear differences as they see it between President Biden’s classified documents case in which, again, he is not being charged, and that of former President Trump, a case where the legal issues are still working their way through court, even just this week, last week, recently here, Savannah. From the White House, expect aggressive pushback. One White House aide tells me that they see this as nothing more than a political exercise. They see this as case closed and a Biden aide, on the age issue, points us to the State of the Union last week. They feel like President Biden, with that energetic speech, made the case that he is well prepared to take on another four years in office[.]
To see the relevant transcripts from March 12, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).
