On Wednesday night’s PBS NewsHour, Judy Woodruff followed Biden out on his post-State of the Union road trip to give him a soft-ball interview. During the friendly sit-down, Woodruff couldn’t understand “the disconnect” between what Woodruff described as Biden’s good economy and the polling that shows overwhelmingly that Americans are pessimistic and struggling financially.
“The picture you painted last night, unemployment, record low. Growth, the economy, what is it inflation is coming down, incomes are rising,” Woodruff sympathetically stated.
“When you look at the polls. CBS poll, 64 percent of Americans think the economy is in a bad shape. There’s an NBC poll 71 percent think the country is on the wrong track. Why the disconnect?” Woodruff asked.
“Because the polls don't matter anymore. You gotta make 40, 50 calls on a cellphone to get someone to answer a poll,” Biden conveniently replied. It goes without saying that if the polls looked good for Biden, he would be singing a different tune. Yet Woodruff never pointed that out to him.
Later on in the interview, she painted Biden and his family as victims of Republican congressional investigations.
“One of the things Republicans say is a priority for them is investigating your family. Your son Hunter, your brother Jim. They talk about access that they say others have gotten because of you, because of your political success,” Woodruff whined to Biden before asking him “how do you plan to deal with that?”
Biden responded that “the public is not going to pay attention to that. They want these guys to do something. If the only thing they can do is make up things about my family, it's not going to go very far.”
In reality, that’s not true. Recent polls show that Americans support oversight investigations into the corrupt Biden family business dealings. Woodruff failed to mention that to Biden.
This softball interview with Joe Biden was paid for in part by Consumer Cellular and by taxpayers like you.
The relevant transcript of below. Click “expand” to read:
PBS NewsHour
2/8/2023
7:14:13 p.m. EasternJUDY WOODRUFF: I want to ask about that because the picture you painted last night, unemployment, record low. Growth, the economy, what is it inflation is coming down, incomes are rising. And yet when you mention the polls. When you look at the polls. CBS poll, 64 percent of Americans think the economy is in a bad shape. There’s an NBC poll 71 percent think the country is on the wrong track. Why the disconnect?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Because the polls don't matter anymore. You gotta make 40, 50 calls on a cellphone to get someone to answer a poll. Even the pollsters, you talked to them. Ask them what they think about—Look.
WOODRUFF: So you don't think it’s your policy or your failure to communicate?
BIDEN: Oh I know the policy. If you ask the same thing do they support rebuilding the infrastructure of America, overwhelmingly they support. Ask anybody.
[...]
7:20:44 p.m. Eastern
WOODRUFF: One of the things Republicans say is a priority for them is investigating your family. Your son Hunter, your brother Jim. They talk about access that they say others have gotten because of you, because of your political success. How do you plan to deal with that?
BIDEN: The public is not going to pay attention to that. They want these guys to do something. If the only thing they can do is make up things about my family, it's not going to go very far.
