Talk about a disconnect between the media and the general electorate. Imagine flying all the way to Arizona to do the obligatory panel on Biden’s decline in the polls amongst Latinos, and having your January 6th question laughed off by the panel.
That’s exactly what happened to CBS’s Weijia Jiang in Arizona. Watch:
WEIJIA JIANG: President Biden has called Trump a threat to democracy and made it a central part of his campaign. Is democracy on the ballot in 2024?
STEVE MACIAS: I don't buy that argument.
RAQUEL GLOWDEN: I don’t, either.
MACIAS: To me, now, that's just another talking point. Every time I hear it, I just kind of tune it out.
GLOWDEN: I know.
MACIAS: It’s something that, you know…some focus group came up with, and now they're just using it to death.
GLOWDEN: I really don't think they understand what democracy is when they say that. You know- the fact that there is a ballot is democracy.
That J6 question was a capper to a brutal panel- brutal for a member of the regime media trying to understand why a key 2020 Biden constituency has turned on him. It was also indicative of the broad disconnect between the elite Acela Media and the general public, Latino or otherwise.
The panel reveals that Biden’s most glaring weaknesses are his handling of the border and of the economy- same as everyone else. And even those who had issues with Trump's rhetoric admitted to Jiang’s face that things were better when he was in office.
JIANG: The economy is also a factor in how they'll vote.
GLOWDEN: It used to be that we could go out and do things, you know, go to dinner, you know, once or twice a week. Now, no, that's not happening. We have to budget everything down to -- down to the finest thing.
JIANG: Do you think the economy was better under trump?
GLOWDEN: I do.
MACIAS: Um…yeah, yeah, absolutely, I would say so.
During the exchange on immigration, Jiang repeated the “animals” hoax, which conflates all immigrants with criminal migrants for purposes of whenever Trump calls criminal migrants “animals”, as he did in 2019 with MS-13 and last weekend in Ohio, in reference to Laken Riley’s murderer, among others.
Pity the Acela journalist traveling all the way to Phoenix, only to get reality-mugged by an electorate that Biden is supposed to have well in the bag.
Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on CBS Evening News on Wednesday, March 20th, 2024:
NORAH O’DONNELL: President Biden and former President Donald Trump cruised to victory last night in the primary elections in the battleground state of Arizona. But in tonight's "Listening to America," CBS's Weijia Jiang hears from voters who aren't happy with their options in the general election.
WEIJIA JIANG: Republican business owner Steve Macias voted for Donald Trump in 2020, but he's not sure if he will do so again.
STEVE MACIAS: I- I really still have trouble trying to figure out who I'm going to vote for.
JIANG: The same goes for Democrat Paulina Flores.
PAULINA FLORES: In 2020 I voted for Biden.
JIANG: And independent Raquel Glowden.
RAQUEL GLOWDEN: I voted for Donald Trump.
JIANG: What happened in the past three years, or didn't happen, that you are still so undecided about who to vote for?
FLORES: It's almost like there's too many chefs in the kitchen, or there isn't a main chef in the kitchen.
MACIAS: On the Biden side, you know, I was thinking, well, okay, good, he is the adult in the room, at least. He's been through this. This will be calm. And it hasn't.
JIANG: Since winning Arizona in 2020, support for President Biden, who spoke outside Phoenix today, has softened among Latino voters. The Latino vote helped Biden clinch wins here in Arizona. Do you think he’s done enough to maintain that lead here?
MACIAS: I think his Latino numbers will go down.
JIANG: In part because they say Biden has not done enough to deal with issues at the southern border.
GLOWDEN: He put his vice president in charge of the border czar, and then what happened? She just disappeared. So does he really care about it?
JIANG: But they can't get behind Trump's divisive rhetoric, recently calling migrants animals.
MACIAS: I mean come every time I think, maybe there is a chance I will vote for him, stuff like that comes out and like, ehhhh.
FLORES: And then he says something like, “Ooh, I shouldn’t have said that, dude.”
GLOWDEN: Makes you cringe.
JIANG: The economy is also a factor in how they'll vote.
GLOWDEN: It used to be that we could go out and do things, you know, go to dinner, you know, once or twice a week. Now, no, that's not happening. We have to budget everything down to -- down to the finest thing.
JIANG: Do you think the economy was better under trump?
GLOWDEN: I do.
MACIAS: Um…yeah, yeah, absolutely, I would say so.
JIANG: President Biden has called Trump a threat to democracy and made it a central part of his campaign. Is democracy on the ballot in 2024?
MACIAS: I don't buy that argument.
GLOWDEN: I don’t, either.
MACIAS: To me, now, that's just another talking point. Every time I hear it, I just kind of tune it out.
GLOWDEN: I know.
MACIAS: It’s something that, you know…some focus group came up with, and now they're just using it to death.
GLOWDEN: I really don't think they understand what democracy is when they say that. You know- the fact that there is a ballot is democracy.
JIANG: In our conversation, age also came up as a major issue. And that’s why the voters said they are paying close attention to Vice President Kamala Harris and to whoever Trump chooses as his running mate. They said it could be a deciding factor, Norah.
O’DONNELL: Weijia Jiang for us in Arizona. Thank you so much.
