While none of the three broadcast morning shows provided even a syllable of coverage Friday morning to revelations Joe Biden conducted business under the fake name “Robert L. Peters” when he was Vice President, all three networks lavished attention on the hardly-jarring news that Biden was hosting two long-standing American allies for a meeting this weekend.
Between them, ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS Mornings and NBC’s Today devoted 6 minutes, 17 seconds to Biden’s get together, using language such as “historic,” “high-stakes” and “first-ever” to make it seem as if the President should be credited with a huge diplomatic accomplishment. That contrasts with ZERO seconds for the new scandal bombshell revealed yesterday.
“It may be hard to believe, but this is actually the first-ever stand-alone trilateral meeting between these three nations,” CBS’s Christina Ruffini hyped. Of course, the three men have met in other settings and combinations, but “first-ever stand-alone trilateral meeting” is, apparently, a uniquely crucial category of diplomatic engagement.
“And the location of Camp David is no accident, given its history of the past diplomatic milestones,” Ruffini enthused. “It shows just how seriously the Biden administration and the two visiting leaders are taking the summit.”
If that summons distant memories of when Jimmy Carter brought together the leaders of Egypt and Israel for an actually historic summit in 1978, it’s supposed to. While a new agreement to deter China would be a useful thing, hosting a meeting for a pair of allies is not exactly the most difficult diplomatic task one can imagine.
ABC’s Good Morning America spent more than four minutes Friday morning on what it repeatedly called a “high-stakes summit,” including an interview with Biden spokesman John Kirby.
“This is, as President Biden likes to say, a big deal,” ABC’s Terry Moran told viewers. “It’s the first time in history the leaders of the United States, Japan and South Korea will meet for a joint stand alone summit, and we’ll see that later today in the historic setting of Camp David, the presidential retreat up in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland, where Presidents have brokered peace deals and met so many world leaders over the decades.”
Moran suggested it was really, really tough to get the two long-standing U.S. allies together to deal with the threats posed to each by China and North Korea, but somehow, Joe Biden made it happen: “Japan and South Korea have a cold, even bitter relationship dating back to World War II and beyond, but at Biden’s urging, they are trying to move past that history and confront the threats in the Asia Pacific today, namely China and North Korea.”
GMA Co-host Michael Strahan then employed the hardball interview tactic of asking one Biden employee to respond to the positive spin of another Biden employee: “Mr. Kirby, thank you for joining us this morning. We know that this summit is the latest sign that Japan and South Korea are moving toward close cooperation in terms of security. America’s Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel called this a major move on the chess board. How exactly?”
Kirby: “It’s very significant...”
NBC’s Today offered the least attention, just under a minute from Kristen Welker, although co-host Savannah Guthrie made sure to call the summit “high stakes,” while Welker insisted that “it is significant.” NBC’s on-screen graphic claimed: “Biden Holding Historic Summit” — a helpful bit of spin for a President with low approval ratings seeking re-election.
ABC’s four-minute long promotion of the Biden administration’s diplomacy was sponsored by Cadillac, although it really should have been paid for by the Democratic National Committee.
