NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham discussed President Biden's primetime speech decrying 'MAGA Republicans' endangering democracy on Friday's Fox News at Night. Fox host Kevin Corke noted The Washington Post editorial board criticized the speech as more partisan than patriotic.
Graham slammed Biden for suggesting the entire Republican Party was a threat to democracy: "Good for The Washington Post editorial board for saying it was a nasty partisan speech. It doesn't actually accomplish what he thinks it was supposed to accomplish."
The other guest, Beverly Hallberg of the Independent Women's Forum, said the media lowlight of the week was the awful dark-red optics behind the president. "Here you have the leader of the Free World who is supposed to have at his disposal the best experts to get the best staging yet you had the president with this red, ominous lighting behind him" and the inappopriate use of Marine guards behind him for a campaign speech. Graham agreed, imagining campaign managers like James Carville having a fit over it.
Graham's lowlight was MSNBC historian Michael Beschloss comparing the current moment to Lincoln in 1860 and Franklin Roosevelt in 1940, implying that today's "MAGA Republicans" were like slave-holding Confederates or Hitler's armies.
TIM GRAHAM: He did it on Chris Hayes. He did it on Lawrence O'Donnell. He did it on Morning Joe this morning. I also discovered tonight he did it on the PBS NewsHour. He's comparing Biden to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He's basically trying to sculpt Biden onto Mount Rushmore or something. And that's where you just say look, this is not serious. It's one thing for Beschloss to go into a dinner with Biden at the White House and flatter him this way. It's another to go on television and try to tell the rest of us this is somehow the Abraham Lincoln of the 21st century.
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