Thursday's front page at The New York Times featured a story headlined, "Biden, Wearied and Stinging, Prepares to Exit." White House reporters Peter Baker and Zolan Kanno-Youngs were blunt in the third paragraph about Biden's inability to do the job any more (without openly expressing concern over how he's doing it right now).
Time is catching up with Mr. Biden. He looks a little older and a little slower with each passing day. Aides say he remains plenty sharp in the Situation Room, calling world leaders to broker a cease-fire in Lebanon or deal with the chaos of Syria’s rebellion. But it is hard to imagine that he seriously thought he could do the world’s most stressful job for another four years.
Somehow, the morning pundits on MSNBC didn't think this passage was the highlight. Instead, Way Too Early host Jonathan Lemire led off his 5 am show with readings that swerved around the blunt stuff. He began paragraphs six and seven. Then he briefly noted Biden's "fragility" was "painfully clear" in paragraph 13, then rushed forward to paragraph 20 touting his "command of the details."
MSNBC's "Way Too Early" on Wednesday led with a @nytimes story on Weary Biden (on the front page today). Jon Lemire reeeally popped around to the more positive paragraphs. pic.twitter.com/DioH9pcT2D
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) December 19, 2024
This was the sensitive stuff in paragraphs 13, 14, and 16:
During his visit to the Amazon rainforest last month, his fragility appeared painfully clear to those traveling with him.
After speaking for seven minutes on a day of draining humidity, a blue shirt hanging loosely over his frame, he turned to slowly shuffle away down a dirt path as several people in the audience not used to seeing him up close said they held their breath, worried that he would trip. (Aides said his gait was no more unsteady than usual.)
….When Mr. Biden visited the National Museum of Slavery that afternoon, he did not actually enter the main building to view the exhibitions; instead, artifacts were brought outside to show him, which two people familiar with the planning attributed to fear that the steep stairs would be too much of a challenge.
Baker and Kanno-Youngs also touched on how "several" people traveling with the president noted he "maintained a light schedule at times and sometimes mumbled, making him hard to understand."
On Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski only repeated paragraphs 6 and 7, and how Trump was so "ungrateful" for the supposedly vibrant economy.
On "Morning Joe," Mika Brzezinski performed a dramatic reading of just two paragraphs from the @nytimes, hyping how Biden is "claiming credit for a healthy economy that he is turning over to his ungrateful predecessor." pic.twitter.com/Lac7QAbS0K
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) December 19, 2024
Morning Joe also failed to revisit how Biden's "fragility" was portrayed by them as a lie, as Joe Scarborough uttered our Quote Of The Year, claiming ridiculously that the 2024 version of Biden was the "best Biden ever."
