Not Having Fun: Here Were ABC’s Worst Pre-Inauguration Meltdowns, Kisses for Biden

Curtis Houck
January 20th, 2025 3:05 PM

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In the three hours leading up to President Trump’s second inauguration on Monday, the liberal journalists at ABC were having a rough time as they said America’s “deeply divided” thanks to Trump, suggested his affinity and support for the forgotten men and women is fake because of his budding friendships with tech billionaires, and that America no longer has real “check and balances” when Republicans are in power.

ABC presidential historian Mark Updegrove used his first set of comments in the 9:00 a.m. Eastern hour to paint Trump as behind what ails the country’s wounds:

Speaking of Updegrove, he and World News Tonight anchor David Muir would partner for an insane downplaying of Trump’s election victory:

Incredibly, ABC News Live anchor Linsey Davis tag-teamed with Muir and longtime correspondent Terry Moran to wonder if the presence of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg inside the Capitol rotunda bode ill for the President’s promise to serve the working class (click the X post to see the full transcript):

Speaking of the economy, chief economics and business correspondent (and former Apprentice contestant) Rebecca Jarvis suggested a successful Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) would harm the economy by shrinking the size of our bureaucracy:

Contributor and Washington Post editor Mary Jordan had this out-of-the-box meltdown:

Chief global affairs anchor Martha Raddatz got in a few digs at Pete Hegseth as the cabinet nominees arrived at the Capitol. Nearly an hour after she based him as lacking “a great deal of management experience,” she lambasted him over his confirmation hearing:

The only things they clung to? That President Biden hosted the Trumps for the tradition morning tea and preemptive pardons of Dr. Tony Fauci, the January 6 Committee, and retired General Mark Milley.

This led off the start of their special coverage with Muir gushing this was “quite something to see” and Karl and Raddatz giving a complete and total defense (and thus worth obliterating democratic norms) (click “expand”):

KARL: Look. In the campaign, Donald Trump talked about retribution. It was really a cornerstone of his campaign, and there were several times during the campaign, David, where he specifically suggested prosecutions for the members of the January 6th Committee, Liz Cheney, and the others, for Mark Milley who of course, was his own chairman in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Anthony Fauci. In the case of Milley, Trump suggested he could face the death penalty. So, faced with that, Joe Biden has made this perhaps his last official act as President to issue these blanket pardons. He says this was done not because he believes any of these people committed crimes or did anything wrong, but that they will face politically motivated prosecutions. Now I spoke to Dr. Anthony Fauci who was right there at the top of the list of pardons this morning, just a short while ago. He said that he didn’t seek this. He didn’t ask for it, that the White House first reached out late December about this, but he welcomes it because he knows that if he had faced prosecutions or even investigations, it would have consumed his family. It could have been very costly and very detrimental, so a really big move here by Biden on the way out the door.

MUIR: Very costly, and for many years to come, and Dr. Fauci, I saw in your note that you sent out on our in-house DL, we call this the e-mail system, you talked to Fauci a short time ago, he made it very clear, though. He said, Jon, I didn’t do anything wrong here.

KARL: He made it absolutely clear and it’s important that Biden underlined this in the statement he issued — this pardons. This is not saying that any of these people did anything wrong that would have warranted prosecution, but Donald Trump made it clear, and by the way, David, something I’ve just learned. I think this may have an impact on what Trump does today right after he gets sworn in. As we’ve discussed, Donald Trump has talked about pardons for the January 6 prisoners, for those that were convicted of attacking the Capitol. The plan as of late last night, I am told by somebody familiar, that Donald Trump was going to issue pardons for hundreds of them, but not all of them, that those that were involved in attacking police officers for instance, would wait for a further review by his Justice Department. I am told that it is quite possible that he goes further now and truly issues blanket pardons for virtually everybody who attacked the Capitol on January 6, in part, out of a reaction to what Joe Biden did.

(....)

RADDATZ: It is extraordinary. He was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest ranking military officer in this nation, and I’m looking at those images of St. John’s Church. That day in June 2020 when the National Guard was going after Black Lives Matters protesters, Mark Milley in uniform, crossed Lafayette Square, and at that moment, peeled off before they got to St. John’s Church because he felt it was too political. Within days, he apologized for even being in Lafayette Square with the President and others going to St. John’s Church. That was kind of the beginning of the end for Mark Milley. Donald Trump was not happy about that, but what he was most unhappy about he said, according to Donald Trump, was a call that Mark Milley made to a counterpart in China because Milley first of all, was told to make that call by the defense secretary, to calm down the Chinese, especially after January 6 when Milley feared they would worry that the U.S. was going to attack them, and there were signs that the Chinese were worried. So, Milley did make that call, but he said again and again he did nothing wrong. I have spoken to Milley over the last few months about the possibility of a pardon given, as Jon pointed out, what Donald Trump has said about Mark Milley. He’s called him a moron. He’s called him every name in the book, and I asked Milley then, would you accept a pardon? He paused and he said, I would really have to think about it. I have done absolutely nothing wrong. He feared he might be arrested today, but he said, I have done absolutely nothing wrong, but my concern is for my family. I’ve spent 43 years in uniform, serving this country. I don’t want to spend the rest of my years or have my family spend the rest of their years trying to fight something I absolutely didn’t do, and Donald Trump could indeed have pulled him back to active duty to face court martial on who knows what kind of charges, but they can actually legally do that in the Pentagon, pull someone back to face trial. I also know, David, there are military officers, retired military officers whose lawyers have told them to go on vacation for a few days to see what happens with the trump administration.

Bruce was ebullient over this “remarkable use of presidential power in the 11th hour, and President Biden is really sending this strong signal that he fears that Donald Trump will abuse his power, will abuse his power in office” and not “leave any of this up to chance” that Trump wold be “wishy washy” promise to “leave it up to the Justice Department as to whether he would not prosecute these people.”

Muir hilariously said ABC wouldn’t “belabor” January 6 and the post-2020 transition, but would do just that in trumpeting Biden ensuring “the traditions of the peaceful transfer of power, even if he wasn’t afforded the invitation four years ago, he was determined to get back on track in this respect.”

“And adamant to show the American people the importance of those democratic, you know, fundamentals, that this country values which is the peaceful transfer of power that even though it was something he was not afforded four years...[H]is outgoing message to the nation that as he argues, you know, American democracy is something that isn’t just important, but has to be protected, and part of protecting it is for Americans to see that, whether you win or lose, you are going to participate in this transfer of power,” Bruce swooned.

That same hour, Muir waxed poetic of the morning tea as “the cornerstone of democracy in this country” that Trump chose to forgo in 2021 that left “so many people were so upset about, and rightly so....robb[ing] them of the moment...of this moment, this sort of mutual respect.”

“Democracy in action, David. That is really what American democracy is all about, the ability to say you lost and you’re going to welcome the incoming winner. It is also astounding just to think that Joe Biden is there welcoming home as he may have said, the man he once defeated,” Bruce trumpeted.

Bruce also made sure her heart went out to Harris, saying it had to be “a bittersweet day this has got to be for Kamala Harris, and for Joe Biden, but certainly it is not the day that Kamala Harris had envisioned.” Sure enough, she and Muir gently placed blame for this on Biden not having dropped out sooner.

She couldn’t even spin without lying. After First Lady Jill Biden and Second Gentlemen Doug Emhoff entered the Capitol rotunda, she said this:

Karl, Muir, and Updegrove would undermine Bruce just prior to the inaugural ceremonies getting underway with Karl first noting Biden’s comments insisting he would have defeated Trump if not forced out had to have stung, adding “their legacies are all so intertwined” with Trump.

Updegrove put a bright spin on the Biden presidency by touting his reaction to the 2017 events in Charlottesville and that while it’s “a big failure” he didn’t keep Trump from a second term, he also had “many triumphs...including...the many laws that he stewarded through Congress, perhaps the most important legislative president since LBJ.”

To see the relevant ABC transcript from January 20, click here.

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