On June 18, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing into whether former President Joe Biden was actually in charge — given his clear mental decline.
A focal point of the investigation was the concern that the autopen was being used for executive orders and pardons without Biden’s knowledge.
All four broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS) ignored it.
There wasn’t any reporting of the topic until a July 13 New York Times story prompted a brief 34-second mention by NBC.
In a month of coverage (June 18-July 18) ABC, CBS, and PBS have YET to devote a single second to the Biden autopen scandal on their evening, morning or Sunday roundtable shows.
In the New York Times article Biden ADMITTED he didn’t sign on to every person who received a pardon. The New York Times also reported there are emails that show then-White House chief of staff Jeff Zients approved use of the autopen.
The New York Times reported:
Mr. Biden said in Thursday’s interview that he had his staff use an autopen for the warrants because he had granted clemency to so many people; the autopen was used, in all, on 25 pardon and commutation warrants from last December to January…Mr. Biden did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people, he and aides confirmed. Rather, after extensive discussion of different possible criteria, he signed off on the standards he wanted to be used to determine which convicts would qualify for a reduction in sentence.
The following is the entirety of autopen scandal coverage on ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS:
NBC Nightly News
July 14, 2025[34 seconds]
CORRESPONDENT GARRETT HAAKE: Tonight, President Trump also responding to former President Biden who — in a new interview with The New York Times — called Trump and other Republicans liars for saying his aides had used an autopen without his authorization for thousands of pardons and clemencies issued in his administration’s final weeks. Biden telling the Times, quote, “I made every decision,” while acknowledging his staff used an autopen to apply his signature because, he said, “we’re talking about a whole lot of people.” Trump, who has also made use of an autopen, responding.
DONALD TRUMP: I guarantee he knew nothing about what he was signing. I guarantee it.
For this study MRC analysts looked at the broadcast evening (ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News), morning news shows (ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, CBS Saturday Morning, CBS Sunday Morning, NBC Today, NBC Sunday Today) and Sunday roundtable shows (ABC’s This Week, NBC’s Meet the Press, CBS’s Face the Nation) June 18 through the morning of July 18.
