In the last few days, an uproar from the liberal media was sparked over the realization that President Joe Biden … is old, and there is no hiding it anymore. The concern comes after a great number of videos depicting Biden’s many public outings, and even more publicly known gaffes and moments of disorientation went viral. Upcoming CNN debate moderator and Inside Politics host Dana Bash, along with national political reporter Daniel Strauss, and senior political analyst Nia-Malika Henderson, claimed the videos were “fake” on Wednesday, but unfortunately for them, they aren’t.
As the rise in AI deepfakes has spread concern over misrepresentation, misleading, or even fake imagery, the progressive media now rides this wave, in hopes that it will cover for Biden’s obvious age and frailty. The truth is that these images are rarely edited, but usually depict Biden’s actions from different angles, usually ones that the media has avoided. The fact of the matter is that the media has been trying to cover for Biden’s fumbles and have run out of excuses.
During the panel, Dana Bash spoke hesitantly on the issue, explaining why she was hesitant to speak on it at all in the case lest she give it any more attention, “Here are videos that are being put out on social media and then amplified on conservative media that in some cases are just not right and in other cases are highly, highly misleading of President Biden… So, it's the question that I started this conversation with is how much to talk about it versus how much to just kind of ignore it and we're trying to do both here. What are your thoughts?”
Henderson replied:
Listen, the Trump campaign is going to do this and voters are going to see it. They're going to imbibe this and not necessarily know that it's fake. It’s a real problem. You see the Biden team trying to counteract this, but I think the problem is to the Streisand example in fact-checking. Do you amplify it? Right? This thing is fake well, what is this the thing that you're talking about? And then you go see it. So it's a real problem, but I think at the core there is this problem with both of these candidates in terms of age and perceptions.
Again, many of these videos deemed“fake” by CNN simply highlight a major issue among voters, and more than age, the problem is capability. Yes, both Trump and Biden are older, that is not the issue, as both are not equally capable. However, Strauss did not see this:
I have never seen something like – in any election I've covered the topic of frailty and age being so important and impactful to voters. I mean, you see this with how sensitive the Biden campaign is to any sort of perception that he is too old that he has – not even lost the step, but he has sort of become a little more frail. And how eager the Trump campaign is to amplify that even though both candidates are old they are old but this is, this is the issue that some voters and low information voters really care about.
“Sort of a little more frail,” is an understatement and one which really characterizes this issue. In a time where the country looks at the threats of a world filled with terrorism, war, and corruption, demanding an astute leader is no crime.
The transcript is below, click “expand” to read:
CNN’s Inside Politics
6/19/2024
12:12:42 PM EST
Run Time: 2 minutes 55 seconds
DANA BASH: I want to make a bit of a turn in our conversation to something that we've been wanting to talk about on the show for a little bit and just to be totally transparent, trying to figure out how to do it. And when I say “it,” it is a lot of memes and what the White House is calling “cheap fakes,” which means that these— there are videos that are being put out on social media and then amplified on conservative media that in some cases are just not right and in other cases are highly, highly misleading of President Biden and I don't want to go – I don't want to let a moment go by where I can read a tweet from Barbara Streisand on the show. So, I'm going to do it, she said, “We must stay vigilant to the ongoing and pervasive spread of misinformation. Maybe now more than usual, in the lead up to the presidential election.”
And her argument was don't amplify it. It is interesting given the fact that there was a famous case where somebody took a picture of her house in Malibu and she sued to not have that shown and then it turned out that people started looking at the picture more than before. So, it's the question that I started this conversation with is how much to talk about it versus how much to just kind of ignore it and we're trying to do both here. What are your thoughts?
DANIEL STRAUSS: I have never seen something like – in any election I've covered the topic of frailty and age being so important and impactful to voters. I mean, you see this with how sensitive the Biden campaign is to any sort of perception that he is too old that he has – not even lost the step, but he has sort of become a little more frail and how eager the Trump campaign is to amplify that even though both candidates are old—
BASH: Right.
STRAUSS: — they are old but this is, this is the issue that some voters and low and information voters really care about.
BASH: But there's that, which is a reality. You have a 78-year-old and an 82-year-old—
KAYLA TAUSCHE: One.
BASH: —81-year-old and we have lots of examples of both of them.
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON: Yeah.
BASH: Maybe Trump's aren't played as much, but both of them appearing to, to use your words, “lose a step”. That's one thing. The other thing is to take something that actually happened and make it look worse than it is.
HENDERSON: And listen, the Trump campaign is going to do this and voters are going to see it. They're going to imbibe this and not necessarily know that it's fake. It’s a real problem. You see the Biden team trying to counteract this, but I think the problem is to the Streisand example, in fact-checking it, do you amplify it? Right? This thing is fake well, what is this the thing that you're talking about? And then you go see it. So, it's a real problem, but I think at the core there is this problem with both of these candidates in terms of age and perceptions.
BASH: Okay.
