The National "Public" Radio website featured this curious item at the top of the home page on the last morning of 2024: 8 questions for President Biden, if he'd take them. Senior political director Domenico Montanaro noted Biden has "relatively few" press conferences (try historically few), "but here's what NPR's White House correspondents would ask him if he did hold one."
Honk if you're dubious that NPR's Biden pals would actually throw these:
1. Why didn't you follow through on your pledge to be a bridge to the next generation and step aside in time for your party to hold a primary? — Mara Liasson
This defines a question that could have been asked back when Biden announced his plans to run for re-election on April 2023. But NPR never mentioned "bridge to the next generation" in their story at that time. They reported Biden was "unlikely to face a serious challenge for the nomination" and Kamala's approval numbers were worse than his. So they let Democrats tout his wonderful first two years and tout Trump as a weak opponent.
2. Do you regret not responding to the border challenges sooner and more forcefully? — Franco Ordoñez
As Curtis Houck reported in 2022, Ordonez at least asked Karine Jean-Pierre about cooperating on the border with Republican governors. She wasn't having it.
3. You said that the prosecution of your son Hunter Biden had been politicized. Trump says the same thing about the charges against him. Do you feel that the prosecution of Trump was politicized in any way? If not, do you worry about giving credibility to Trump's arguments of an unfair prosecution? — Franco Ordoñez
Everyone should remember NPR's infamous dismissal of the Hunter Biden laptop (and the attending censorship) in October 2020. Even in 2023, analyst Jonah Goldberg was pronouncing House hearings on Hunter Biden as "infotainment" for the base.
4. You campaigned on the idea that Trump was a threat to democracy. Do you still believe he's an existential threat to democracy? And what's your message to the many Democrats who worry he is? — Asma Khalid
Again, this is a weird flex from NPR, when Mara Liasson was pushing the "threat to democracy" talking points in December 2016.
5. If Donald Trump was such a terrible president the first time, as you and many Democrats suggested, why did Americans want him back? — Asma Khalid
That's fun to imagine! Voters decided Biden was worse than Trump, and they wouldn't have reached that conclusion if they listened to NPR on a regular basis.
The last three potential questions are softballs, which you can imagine NPR asking. Deepa "Biden Boba Tea" Shivaram proposed asking what it will take to get a woman elected president and who Biden thinks is the future for the Democrats. Tamara Keith would ask what he feels is his greatest accomplishment. Some of them were suckups to the end.
This is Tamara Keith being "tough."
DEHUMANIZING! On the PBS @NewsHour, NPR reporter Tamara Keith cites (liberal) historian to define Biden in relation to beating Trump: "Right now, if you ask, he was the dragon slayer, as one historian told me, but then he also is the man who let the dragon back in." pic.twitter.com/HjyehNKnrb
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) December 31, 2024
