The liberal media have spent years insisting that rhetoric from Donald Trump and his supporters about the media and their leftists allies are not only wrong, but dangerous. However, when it comes to their friends inflaming tensions and assigning the worst motives to conservatives, the liberal media either ignore it or endorse it and that’s what they did in trumpeting President Biden’s “fiery” Thursday speech and “going on the offensive” against the GOP’s “semi-fascism.”
CBS Mornings played the role of state-run TV for the Biden administration from the get-go with co-host Nate Burleson boasting: “President Biden goes on the attack before the midterms, accusing Trump supporters of embracing political violence.” Following that tease, a clip aired of Biden insisting that “[t]he very survival of our planet is on the ballot.”
Co-host Tony Dokoupil also saw zero issue with Biden’s apocalyptic view of Americans who merely disagree with him politically:
President Biden is going on the offensive...During a Democratic rally in Maryland last night, he put abortion rights front and center and he criticized Trump supporters, calling “MAGA Republicans a threat to our very democracy.”
Chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes made it three-for-three on Team Biden:
This was a speech designed to fire up the Democratic base...and President Biden went aggressively after the Trump movement, laying out what he says is on the line in these elections...Testing out some campaign themes, President Biden...argued women’s reproductive rights are at stake this November.
She added the characterization of “ramped up political rhetoric,” but nothing more in teeing up a clip of Biden saying only those who love America will vote blue.
She also followed White House talking points on his “wins” and the cockamamie analogy of comparing student loan forgiveness to the bipartisan Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans (click “expand”):
CORDES: With just over ten weeks to go before midterm elections, President Biden and his party are looking to capitalize on a series of recent policy wins, including the health care and climate change law, gun reform, and the new student loan forgiveness plan —
CONGRESSWOMAN MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA) [on Newsmax’s American Agenda, 08/25/22]: It's completely unfair.
CORDES: — which Republican lawmakers slammed Thursday.
GREENE [on Newsmax’s American Agenda, 08/25/22]: For our government to just say, you know, oh, okay, your debut is completely forgiven. They have an agenda for that. They need votes in November.
CORDES: The White House Twitter account went on the offensive, calling out Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene by name for criticizing student loan forgiveness even after their own pandemic-era business loans, known as PPP, were forgiven by the government.
Going back to the midterms, she basked in Democrats “feeling new optimism” based on closer-than-expected results in special congressional elections and Congressman-elect Pat Ryan (D-NY) running a campaign fixated on abortion.
Only at the end of her report did Cordes note that Biden ran on a promise to bring Americans together: “Candidate Biden may have run on civility and bringing Americans together, but now with control of the House and the Senate hanging in the balance, he is clearly ratcheting up the rhetoric.”
In the mid-show highlight video, Burleson had no pushback: “President Biden accuses the GOP of descending into ‘semi-fascism’ during a campaign-style speech.”
ABC’s Good Morning America was also onboard. As part of a report on pushback to the President’s student loan program, congressional correspondent Rachel Scott gushed that Biden “was not shy about touting a recent string of legislative accomplishments and political wins, hoping that this does provide fresh momentum for Democrats[.]”
“Believe it or not, they are less than 75 days away, so the President held this campaign rally in Maryland and he used some of his strongest language yet against Republicans, calling some of their philosophy semi-fascism,” she added, offering no sort of denunciation.
And on NBC’s Today, they briefly and gently touched on Biden viewing non-Democrats as threats.
Chief White House correspondent Kristen Welker opened a segment mostly focused on the Mar-a-Lago raid to boast that the redacted affidavit “comes as President Biden is back on the campaign trail intensifying his rhetoric with the midterm elections looming large.”
Welker added a few minutes later that Biden’s not been fixated on the raid and was instead “publicly focused on Mr. Trump with a fiery speech to Democrats last night.”
After a clip saying Trump and supporters are “full of violence, anger, hate, and division,” Welker brought up the “semi-fascism” smear and a condemnation from the Republican National Committee (RNC):
The President also starkly attacking what he called “MAGA philosophy” even saying off camera, “it's like semi-fascism.” Now, in a statement overnight, a spokesperson for the Republican National committee called President Biden’s language “despicable.”
To see the relevant transcripts from August 26, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).
