With President Biden’s Wednesday Covid diagnosis and growing questions about his competence taking top billing over the Republican National Convention on Thursday morning, ABC, CBS, and NBC didn’t mince words in burying Biden by observing this “coordinated” push by other Democrats to force him out was reminiscent of a famous scene from A Few Good Men and deployed a term they’d repeatedly invoke to suggest Trump was toast: “The walls are closing in”!
ABC’s Good Morning America co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos has already made his true feelings known about Biden on a hidden camera, so it was no surprise when he bleakly told viewers of Biden “testing positive for Covid” and “facing mounting pressure from the top congressional Democrats...to leave the race”.
Senior White House correspondent Selina Wang was more generous toward the man she covers, but not before lamenting “[t]his could not have come at a worse time for President Biden” as he had “been on the campaign trail trying to prove he has the stamina to stay in this race, but now all of that is on hold as calls for him to drop out grow louder.”
After a mundane blow-by-blow of Wednesday, Wang conceded his “support among democratic leadership is now crumbling”, but closed with some happy talk for this still supporting Biden:
Most Democratic lawmakers are standing by President Biden. Only 21 have publicly called on the President to step aside and their effort to replace Biden is running out of time. The party is planning to hold a virtual roll call to nominate the President in early August and this decision to step aside — it is the President’s to make and it is his alone.
Speaking a few minutes later with chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl, Stephanopoulos dropped the “walls” quote: “Jon, we have to begin with President Biden. Boy, the walls are closing in on him.”
Karl didn’t disagree, blurting out, “oh, they sure are, George” before laying out his reporting that “Senator Chuck Schumer over the weekend...visited one-on-one with President Biden and very directly, very bluntly told him that it would be bad...if he stayed in the race.”
Karl claimed that was reported “first here on ABC”, but was actually shared a day earlier by our friends at the Rutheless variety progrum.
“I just don’t see how it is tenable for — for Joe Biden to continue as the — as the Democratic nominee, President — and Democratic nominee in 2024,” Karl added.
The two further slammed Biden by pointing out “a majority of Democrats polling — in polling shows that a majority of Democrats now want him to leave the race” and his campaign’s fundraising has not only “completely dr[ied] up”, but “stopped” where it seems as though this will be “very hard to sustain”.
NBC’s Today wasn’t even better. Not sitting on the set of Biden’s favorite show, Morning Joe, where he’s a co-host, Willie Geist told it straight: “A rollicking show of unity there Milwaukee for Republicans, as questions are raised now about the political future among Democrats of the President of the United States.”
Senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez described Biden’s Covid test as having arrived “at a devastating time for the President” and “threatens to intensify Democrat’s anxiety about his health as he faces calls to leave the race.”
Gutierrez also noticed Biden’s gait in observing he “slowly boarded Air Force One” and touted the litany of leaks from leading Democrats.
Co-host Savannah Guthrie — who’s married to a Democratic strategist and Gore 2000 campaign official — correctly diagnosed that if “you look at the — the events unfolding yesterday, nothing happens by accident” and thus “felt coordinated and calculated.”
Making the movie reference, Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker agreed and argued that, “when you take it all together and the fact that no one is denying these stories, Savannah, it’s as good as all of them basically saying, yes, we did order the code red”
Like Stephanopoulos and Karl, they also brought up the money crunch as likely to play a role in whether Biden stays or goes.
CBS Mornings didn’t have zingers, but they didn’t go any easier on Biden. Co-host Tony Dokoupil said Biden’s “new setback” in the form of Covid was made worse by footage of him “seem[ing] to struggle to board Air Force One, another scrutinized moment, renewing those big questions about his future as a candidate.”
Correspondent Nikole Killion also spotlighted Biden’s trouble walking: “The President took his time coming down the stairs of the plane, pausing to look around and holding on to the railing. He then slowly made his way into the car, appearing to struggle as he climbed in.”
Dokoupil and correspondent Ed O’Keefe later discussed how this is not how the opposing party would want their counter-programming of the other party’s convention to look like (click “expand”):
DOKOUPIL: You know, Ed, you don’t want to counter-program in quite the way Democrats are —
O’KEEFE: No.
DOKOUPIL: — against the Republican National Convention, but counter-programming it is. We hear Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi potentially making moves behind the scenes when it comes to Joe Biden in the race.
O’KEEFE: There was a congressman who texted me yesterday and said, “Could we have one day without bad news this week?” I mean, it’s been that incredibly terrible for them, frankly. We do know that the two top congressional leaders, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer — and Nancy Pelosi now — have all said to him, essentially, “There’s a potential you’re gonna lose. We’re gonna lose dozens of House races, handful of Senate races, and lose total control of Washington. That message has been conveyed. His team knows that. They understand it. They’ve seen the polling, but he’s not going anywhere. There is no plan for him to leave. There is no plan for an alternative schedule at the Democratic National Convention. Wilmington, or his campaign headquarters as we say, his team, essentially, says, this has been a bad stretch. We’re gonna come out of this. We’re gonna have our convention, you’re gonna see our stars. The President’s going to be talking about different proposals. We mentioned, for example, the Supreme Court changes, proposals to cap rent across the country, things that speak to the voters that Democrats —
DOKOUPIL: Yeah.
O’KEEFE: — need to turn out in November. And if they can do that, they believe things will rebound.
DOKOUPIL: Well, a bad stretch. There’s not that much stretch left.
To see the relevant transcripts from July 18, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).
