Naturally, Trump-hating and fear-loving CNN served Tuesday as Joe Biden’s first in-person interview since the coronavirus pandemic began and, right on cue, chief political correspondent Dana Bash fulfilled her role as a real-life Bashful, liberal foot solider, and citizen of Zuckerville. Between softball questions and assisting Biden in touting anti-Trump conspiracy theories, it was mission accomplished.
Of course, Bash refused to ask about Tara Reade or the refusal from the University of Delaware to release any of Biden’s Senate papers that could provide the public more information on what was internally written at the time of Reade’s allegations. So much for journalism.
Bash started with wearing masks and fretted that it wasn’t “just some people making fun of you” for wearing one, but Trump did too.
“He went on Twitter, retweeted a photo of you wearing it, he's trying to belittle you for wearing a mask, making it seem like a sign of weakness. Is it,” she complained, to which Biden called Trump “a fool, an absolute fool,” a fake “macho” guy whose actions are “costing people’s lives.”
Obviously, there was no pushback on this or anything else that Biden would say in this interview. Because doing so would incur the wrath of Zucker.
Instead, Bash continued to sympathize (click “expand”):
BASH: But wearing a mask has become a cultural and political flashpoint. The President is involved in that, even stoking that.
BIDEN: Sure, he is and look, he's stoking deaths. That's not going to increase the likelihood that people are going to be better off.
BASH: Do you think wearing a mask projects strength or weakness?
BIDEN: Leadership. What it presents and projects is leadership. Presidents are supposed to lead, not engage in folly and be falsely masculine. It reminds me of the guys that I grew up with playing ball. They would walk around with a ball in their hand but they didn't like to hit very much.
BASH: Let's talk about the fact that nearly 100,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus. If you were president right now, what would you do differently? How would you balance people's well-being medically, in terms of their health, versus their economic well-being?
After a section on the economy and fretting that an economic recover would be a Trump “talking point for his reelection,” Bash framed Biden’s Breakfast Club gaffe by wondering not if it was wrong or racist, but whether “all of this could end up hurting the enthusiasm that you really need to win among black voters.”
Notably, Biden responded by blaming Charlemagne Tha God as having been the “wiseguy” first and thus triggered him to say what he did.
The softballs continued as Bash bemoaned that “Trump says offensive things, he never apologizes for it,” so she wondered whether there’s “a double standard here.”
“Well, I'm sure you've seen, some Democrats have said, Mr. Vice President, stop apologizing, you're going to say dumb things, don't apologize because that's not the world we're living in,” she added in a follow-up.
And to further appease Zuckerville, Bash pushed Biden from the left to “take action against the President” for his vile tweets about the death Lori Klausutis, which Biden said should always happen when Trump lies.
Bash’s worst section came in the third and second-to-last questions in which she purposefully helped Biden peddle conspiracy theories that the Trump administration will rig the 2020 election and that the President is mentally unstable (click “expand”):
BASH: The President is stepping up his attacks on mail-in voting. How confident are you that the election in November is going to be safe, secure, and fair?
BIDEN: It depends a lot on whether or not the President follows through with his threats, President Trump. For example, cutting off money for the Post Office for mail-in ballots. This is a guy who sits in the Oval Office, fills out his absentee mail-in ballot, and sends it to Florida to vote in the primary. Now, why is that not something that is susceptible to fraud or does he talk --- there's no evidence at all. There’s no reason why we can't have an honest, decent vote and the President is always lying about voting. I heard him again, he's talking about how all those thousands of people, and California, going to vote two, three, four times. I mean, it’s just bizarre.
BASH: Your political opponents are trying --- the President is trying to paint a picture of you as somebody who is too old to be President and that you're missing a step. How are you going to combat that?
BIDEN: Watch me. Look, I mean, talk about a guy who’s missing a step. He's missing something, I don't know. I want to get down into giving him nicknames, but this is a fellow who looks like he's having trouble controlling his own emotions. What worries me is all the stuff about Biden's hidin'. Well, you know, the fact of the matter is, it's working pretty well so far, doing the rules. He's behind in almost every --- every state. It doesn't mean it's going to be that way come November, but the idea that he seems to get more erratic, the more he feels like he's behind the curve.
Remember when it was dangerously irresponsible to cast doubt on both an election and a candidate’s grasp of their faculties? Good times!
To see the relevant CNN transcript from June 26, click “expand.”
CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer
May 26, 2020
5:25 p.m. EasternDANA BASH: I started by asking if this interview plus his first outing on Memorial Day means he's going to start more traditional campaigning soon.
JOE BIDEN: The answer is yes, but I think you have to lead by example. And I watched the president yesterday wearing no mask, you know, and some making fun of the fact I wore a mask. The truth of the matter is that I think you're supposed to lead by example and one of the things our governor has said, he wanted to keep social distancing, stay at home has been the order, until June 1 of this year and so I think it's important that, look, 100,000 deaths, 100,000 deaths, and at least 35,000, 50,000, were avoidable but for lack of attention and ego, think. And just --- so -- and you know me, I'm usually the last one to leave an event. I like interacting with people, but I hope to be able to do more but we're going to do it by the numbers, because I think it's important because this is not over.
BASH: You mentioned the mask, that you wore a mask yesterday. President Trump went to a Memorial Day service, he did not wear a mask. It's not just some people making fun of you, he did.
BIDEN: Yeah.
BASH: He went on Twitter, retweeted a photo of you wearing it, he's trying to belittle you for wearing a mask, making it seem like a sign of weakness. Is it?
BIDEN: He's a fool, an absolute fool to talk that way. I mean, every leading doc in the world is saying you should wear a mask when you're in a crowd, and especially when you know you're going to be in a position where you're going to inadvertently get closer than 12 feet to somebody. I know we're 12 feet apart, I get that, but it's just absolutely --- this --- this macho stuff, for a guy --- oh, I shouldn't get going. But it's cost people lives. It's costing people's lives and like I said, we're almost 100,000 dead today. 100,000 people. Columbia study showing that we could have --- if he had just started a week earlier, we would have saved thousands of lives. I mean, these are --- these --- this is a tragedy.
BASH: But wearing a mask has become a cultural and political flashpoint. The President is involved in that, even stoking that.
BIDEN: Sure he is and look, he's stoking deaths. That's not going to increase the likelihood that people are going to be better off.
BASH: Do you think wearing a mask projects strength or weakness?
BIDEN: Leadership. What it presents and projects is leadership. Presidents are supposed to lead, not engage in folly and be falsely masculine. It reminds me of the guys that I grew up with playing ball. They would walk around with a ball in their hand but they didn't like to hit very much.
BASH: Let's talk about the fact that nearly 100,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus. If you were president right now, what would you do differently? How would you balance people's well-being medically, in terms of their health, versus their economic well-being?
(….)
BASH: Speaking of making a living, if you win, you could be inheriting some really severe economic challenges. President Trump's senior economic adviser told me on Sunday that the unemployment rate could be in double digits in November and I realize that when you're vice president, you had to deal with the financial collapse. This is different, though. How will you address that?
(….)
BASH: One more question on the economy. The flip side of the first question I asked about the very poor economy, some prominent Democratic economists, I'm sure you've heard about this, they're saying that there's a real possibility that the economy could surge right before the election and the President could use that as a talking point for his reelection. How do you deal with that?
(….)
BASH: I want to ask you about the remark you made last week on The Breakfast Club.
BIDEN: Yeah.
BASH: You said if you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or for Trump, you ain't black.
BIDEN: Well ---
BASH: And you’ve said since that you shouldn't have been so cavalier, But during the same interview, you said the NAACP has endorsed me every time I've run, which isn't true, so my question for you is about what some supporters say they're worried out, which is that all of this could end up hurting the enthusiasm that you really need to win among black voters.
BIDEN: Well, first of all, you know, I --- it was a mistake, number one and I was smiling when he asked me the question, I was --- you know, I shouldn't have been such a wiseguy, he was being a wiseguy, and I responded in kind, I shouldn't have done that, it was a mistake. I've never taken the African-American community for granted, never, never, never once and I've had overwhelming support in my state and overwhelming support from the African-American community in my whole career, but I have never taken it for granted, I work like the devil for it and I have to earn it every single time and nobody's votes should be taken for granted. That's what it conveyed, my --- my response. I've never done that. And if you notice, you know, this --- all the time we're talking about in the primary, well, Biden can't win because look what he did, he didn't -- he came in 99th or something in Iowa, you know, in New Hampshire. I said, wait until we get to a representative state. I've had overwhelming support from the African-American community my whole career..
BASH: Are they going to be out there for you in the same numbers?
(….)
BASH: You did make an effort to clean up that comment pretty quickly. It's still got a lot of attention. President Trump says offensive things, he never apologizes for it. Is there a double standard here, and if so, is there a lesson for you in how to compete with him?BIDEN: No. I'm never going to stoop to where he is. I'm not going to do what he does. He says so many outrageous things and to usually divide, separate. The things he's said about African-Americans and women and --- across the board, Asians, across the board. You know, and he says so many of them that --- I was talking to a friend of mine today, a leader in the African-American community, and I said, why is he going after Barack? He said, because it stirs up his base, Barack’s a black man. I don’t know what that’s reading, but all of a sudden, Barack, the most popular guy out there, and he's attacking Barack, what's that all about?
BASH: Well, I'm sure you've seen, some Democrats have said, Mr. Vice President, stop apologizing, you're going to say dumb things, don't apologize because that's not world we're living in.
BIDEN: No, when I say something that is understandably, in retrospect, offensive to someone, and legitimately offensive, making it look like I'm taking them for granted, I should apologize. I won't apologize for every mistake I make because a lot of them don't have any consequences, just to, you know, beat up, Joe said there were three rungs on that fence, no, there are two rungs on that fence. I'm not going to apologize for that, but my generic point is, you know, look, the good news and the bad news. The vast majority of people, in the data, in my experience, the polling data, they think they know me. That's the good news. The bad news is they know me, so the hard part is, I have real faults, everybody does. They know my faults. It's going to be hard, though, I think, as the data is showing now, to try to turn something they know to be my strength and my honor into a liability.
BASH: So, I want to move on to another topic, but real quick, the President spends a lot of time, especially this past weekend, tweeting some pretty outlandish comments, retweeting others, things like conspiracy theories, suggesting his critics committed murder. Do you think social media companies like Twitter should take action against the president?
Biden: I'm of the view that social media companies have to reexamine whether or not ---for example, if you put something out saying that --- that same outlandish thing that the President thinks, a talk show host on cable committed murder, I mean, you’d say there’s no evidence for that at all. Zero. You know ---
BASH: So, should Twitter do something? Should they take action?
BIDEN: --- yes. I think they should. I think they should say when things are patently not true, they should say so.
BASH: You told me in the last debate that you would pick a woman as your running mate. Will that woman be a woman of color?
(….)
BASH: The background checks, are they happening already?
BIDEN: Not yet.
BASH: Has the vetting started formally?
(….)
BASH: Okay. After your interview with The Breakfast Club, Charlemagne told CNN that he thinks a black woman as a running mate is necessary.
BIDEN: Well, Charlemagne is entitled to his own opinion.
(….)
BASH: The President is stepping up his attacks on mail-in voting. How confident are you that the election in November is going to be safe, secure, and fair?
BIDEN: It depends a lot on whether or not the President follows through with his threats, President Trump. For example, cutting off money for the Post Office for mail-in ballots. This is a guy who sits in the Oval Office, fills out his absentee mail-in ballot, and sends it to Florida to vote in the primary. Now, why is that not something that is susceptible to fraud or does he talk --- there's no evidence at all. There’s no reason why we can't have an honest, decent vote and the President is always lying about voting. I heard him again, he's talking about how all those thousands of people, and California, going to vote two, three, four times. I mean, it’s just bizarre.
BASH: Your political opponents are trying --- the President is trying to paint a picture of you as somebody who is too old to be President and that you're missing a step. How are you going to combat that?
BIDEN: Watch me. Look, I mean, talk about a guy who’s missing a step. He's missing something, I don't know. I want to get down into giving him nicknames, but this is a fellow who looks like he's having trouble controlling his own emotions. What worries me is all the stuff about Biden's hidin'. Well, you know, the fact of the matter is, it's working pretty well so far, doing the rules. He's behind in almost every --- every state. It doesn't mean it's going to be that way come November, but the idea that he seems to get more erratic, the more he feels like he's behind the curve.
BASH: Last thing, this --- we are coming up on five years since your son Beau passed away and we're in a moment in this country where families across the country are grieving their loved ones. What's your message to them?
