BIDEN INTERVIEW RECAP: ABC Didn’t Get Their Campaign-Ending Moment

July 5th, 2024 10:08 PM

In the midst of this news vortex wherein the Regime Media want to rehabilitate their reputations after co-conspiring to hide President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline from the American public, we get tonight’s ABC News interview. George Stephanopoulos sitting down with Biden, hoping to create a moment that either saved the campaign or put it out of its misery. But tonight we got neither.

Think about it. Why else would ABC bump the full interview up to Friday night instead of its normally-scheduled Sunday except to gamble on Biden delivering a campaign-ending gaffe? This is the story told by the grim faces of the assembled post-interview panel:

Jon Karl panned the interview, saying that there was nothing to knock Biden out of the campaign, but nothing to calm jittery DC Dems. In so doing, he cleaned up for Biden. Here’s how Karl summed up Biden’s response to potentially losing the election:

And here’s what Biden actually said, which is also memorialized in ABC’s published transcript (ctrl-f “goodest”):

The interview could most charitably be described as a “Goldilocks” interview. Stephanopoulos does just enough to appear to be questioning Biden while at the same time avoiding the appearance of a tongue bath. The entire interview had the tone of a familial intervention. The questions were certainly there, but the tone and delivery were more in line with an attempt to talk Grandpa into relocating to the assisted living facility after breaking his hip. And Biden reacted as Grandpa might, with resistance to the idea and slight outrage at even having to answer such questions. 

Stephanopoulos’ lack of persistent follow-up questioning allowed Biden to survive the interview despite a fresh batch of eyebrow-raising Bidenisms: mixed-up dates, claims of building NATO and beating Putin, the claim that Mark Warner ran for president (he did not), claims to have checkmated China, an uncertain recall of having watched the debate, and the classic whisper-shout, which, in conjunction with Biden’s persistent hoarseness sounded like Batman voice. But certainly nothing like the awful “beat Medicaid” sequence during the debate. For example, Biden repeated the debunked “inject bleach” lie while calling former President Donald Trump a “congenital liar”, with no follow-up from Stephanopoulos.

Stephanopoulos appeared to mirror Biden’s vigor while questioning him. At times persistent, but no shouty follow-ups like the time Nikki Haley pointed out Biden’s cognitive decline. The interview ends with an exchange where Biden dangles another “watch me” carrot before the media: 

The post-interview panel came on and threw cold water upon the whole affair, citing D.C. Democrats as saying that the interview didn’t do enough to allay concerns, and Mary Bruce doing her level Mary Bruciest to cheerfully spin this disaster, but the die is cast: Biden is intent on hanging on as the media attempt to atone for 4 years of covering for him and, yes, hiding the decline.