On Thursday night, CBS made it three-for-three in terms of the major broadcast networks displaying a night and day difference between their reactions to Joe Biden’s DNC speech and President Trump addressing the RNC.
While CBS saw Biden’s remarks as “from the heart,” “great,” “incredible” and “soaring,” they derided Trump’s White House communiqué as “misleading,” possibly illegal, requiring “clarification,” too optimistic about the coronavirus pandemic, and tough.
Host and CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell took first dibs and called Trump’s 70-minute address “an extraordinary convention speech” that was also “one of his toughest speeches that he has ever given.” It was all downhill from there and even here, O’Donnell stated those things with tone that came across as less-than-thrilled.
After expressing horror at “fireworks that spell out ‘Trump’ on government land,” she asserted that “[t]here are some things the President said tonight that deserve some clarification” and proceeded to trash the President taking almost 30 minutes before addressing the pandemic and denouncing his “misleading” claims about coronavirus deaths in the U.S.
Predictably, there was no fact-checking of Biden (as was the case across all three networks, except some critical questioning of tax policy from Chris Christie on ABC). Instead, O’Donnell proclaimed that Biden gave “one of the strongest speeches of [his] career” and “spoke passionately and from the heart.”
Other than a throwaway line near the end about the effectiveness of Trump running as a Washington outside to Biden, 60 Minutes correspondent John Dickerson sounded more like an aggrieved CNN personality with this screed (click “expand”):
DICKERSON: Well, that's — you know, I was saying earlier, that these are ongoing crises and they don't just matter to now and the campaign. They’re going to matter for many, many months ahead and the most important thing is when you are the biggest voice in government is that people understand and think what you are saying is truthful. And when he says they listen to the science, it’s just not been his record with respect to COVID-19. Consistently when scientists were telling him it was a threat, he was downplaying the threat. When he said anybody who wanted a test can get one, no scientist were telling him that. His fight with his own administration scientists on hydroxychloroquine has been a version of this. When scientists were pushing, pushing to do more testing, he was constantly saying the only reason he was downplaying the benefits of testing. He — his White House attacked Anthony Fauci. He was the most trusted voice on this coming out of the administration and in June the President, and Vice President said the numbers are going down, don't hype that there’s going to be a summer spike, when the scientists were saying there was going to be a summer spike and it turns out there was a summer spike and this, again, is important because in this particular instance more than anything else, truth and clear information from the public official matters to people's health. One other point is he made that Joe Biden, if he were in charge, more would have been dead. Joe Biden, in — in 2019, said the administration doesn't have a pandemic plan, long before anybody was talking about pandemics. So the final thing I would say though to your point, they are coming for me because I'm fighting for you, that is where the President is strongest. Turning Joe Biden in to a Trotskyist may be harder, but this line and the defense of China, that’s where he’s in his real wheelhouse.
O’DONNELL: Does it — does help the President to campaign as an outsider even though he’s President when he’s campaigning against a man who’s spent 47 years in Washington?
DICKERSON: He behaves like such an outsider. Everything he does screams I'm an outsider, even when he’s sitting in the Oval Office, so I think he — it might be able to pull that off.
Dickerson felt quite differently about Biden, complimenting the Democrat for “an old-fashioned” and “thoroughly normal speech for a country that the Biden campaign thinks wants to get off…the carnival ride it’s been on.”
After O’Donnell continued CBS’s fixation on matters pertaining to the Hatch Act, anti-Trump White House correspondent Weijia Jiang was irked the President offered a vision for an America future where the coronavirus pandemic can be behind us and lacking “a core idea” for a second term:
[T]he scene that we saw unfold here at the White House was a picture of what the President wants to be to the U.S. which is a crowd that appears to be normal, that is not social distancing. We know they were not tested unless they were going to be close to the President and there’s actually a lot of greenery where there could have been more chairs spaced out. So, he’s focused on trying to put the pandemic in the rearview and focus on painting a picture of what the country would look like under Biden. But Norah, one other thing that I noticed is he didn't paint a clear picture of his second agenda. He listed a bunch of laundry items but we don't have a core idea of what his priorities will be if he does win in November.
For Biden last week, CBS had Ed O’Keefe on-site in Delaware and took the opposite tract, breathlessly opining that Biden gave “an incredible set of remarks” that were “soaring” and felt like “a presidential-style address.”
CBS went commercial free during their Thursday coverage of the RNC, but go here to learn more about the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back campaign.
CBS News: 2020 America Decides: Republican Convention
August 27, 2020
11:35 p.m. EasternNORAH O’DONNELL: The President of the United States in an extraordinary convention speech that looked more like a campaign rally in front of the White House, the people's house. The President said he was humbled by the nomination and then delivered one of the toughest speeches that he has ever given, repeating his central theme in this campaign that no one will be safe in Biden's America. And he said they're coming after me because I'm fighting for you. And once again, the theme I think which we'll see over the next 68 days, I believe it is until election day. That Joe Biden is a Trojan force for the liberal and socialist policies, in his words, of Bernie Sanders and others in the Democratic Party. There are some — this is an extraordinary thing to — to see this in Washington as the fireworks that spell out “Trump” on government land. There are some things the President said tonight that deserve some clarification. John Dickerson, it took more than half an hour before the President addressed the pandemic that has claimed 180,000 lives and infected more than five million Americans. At one point, he said the U.S. has the lowest case fatality rates of any major country in the world. That is misleading. The U.S. has the highest death toll by numbers in the world and as a percentage of the population, Americans are dying at a higher rate than almost any other country in the world. The President also saying, John, we are focusing on science, the facts, and the data.
JOHN DICKERSON: Well, that's — you know, I was saying earlier, that these are ongoing crises and they don't just matter to now and the campaign. They’re going to matter for many, many months ahead and the most important thing is when you are the biggest voice in government is that people understand and think what you are saying is truthful. And when he says they listen to the science, it’s just not been his record with respect to COVID-19. Consistently when scientists were telling him it was a threat, he was downplaying the threat. When he said anybody who wanted a test can get one, no scientist were telling him that. His fight with his own administration scientists on hydroxychloroquine has been a version of this. When scientists were pushing, pushing to do more testing, he was constantly saying the only reason he was downplaying the benefits of testing. He — his White House attacked Anthony Fauci. He was the most trusted voice on this coming out of the administration and in June the President, and Vice President said the numbers are going down, don't hype that there’s going to be a summer spike, when the scientists were saying there was going to be a summer spike and it turns out there was a summer spike and this, again, is important because in this particular instance more than anything else, truth and clear information from the public official matters to people's health. One other point is he made that Joe Biden, if he were in charge, more would have been dead. Joe Biden, in — in 2019, said the administration doesn't have a pandemic plan, long before anybody was talking about pandemics. So the final thing I would say though to your point, they are coming for me because I'm fighting for you, that is where the President is strongest. Turning Joe Biden in to a Trotskyist may be harder, but this line and the defense of China, that’s where he’s in his real wheelhouse.
O’DONNELL: Does it — does help the President to campaign as an outsider even though he’s President when he’s campaigning against a man who’s spent 47 years in Washington?
DICKERSON: He behaves like such an outsider. Everything he does screams I'm an outsider, even when he’s sitting in the Oval Office, so I think he — it might be able to pull that off.
O’DONNELL: Weijia Jiang is there on the South Lawn of the White House for this extraordinary display of fireworks. Again, I just want to mention on the National mall, on government property, a political display as part of a Republican convention, Weijia.
WEIJIA JIANG: Norah, I think the points that John mentioned are critical because the scene that we saw unfold here at the White House was a picture of what the President wants to be to the U.S. which is a crowd that appears to be normal, that is not social distancing. We know they were not tested unless they were going to be close to the President and there’s actually a lot of greenery where there could have been more chairs spaced out. So, he’s focused on trying to put the pandemic in the rearview and focus on painting a picture of what the country would look like under Biden. But Norah, one other thing that I noticed is he didn't paint a clear picture of his second agenda. He listed a bunch of laundry items but we don't have a core idea of what his priorities will be if he does win in November.
