Monday’s Amanpour & Co., which airs on tax-funded PBS, took advantage of Joe Biden abdicating his re-election campaign to do some Biden-buffing courtesy of Bob Bauer, Biden’s personal lawyer, followed by some Trump-trashing from Sarah Longwell, the “Republican” Never-Trumper, and apparent Kamala Harris booster.
Journalist Walter Isaacson’s interview with Bauer was more of a tribute to the retiring Democratic president than a fact-hunt.
Walter Isaacson: You are very close over the years to President Biden. You've been his personal lawyer. Your wife, Anita Dunn, has been a senior adviser. You know how he makes decisions. You know what he stands for and what he's pushing for. Tell me how his sense -- your sense of his legacy, his political drive, how that all played into the decision he made this weekend.
Bob Bauer: I certainly recognize that Joe Biden, that I think many people have seen over the years, who is an institutionalist deeply committed to constitutional values….
Isaacson encouraged Bauer to paint Biden’s forced ouster in glowing historical terms.
Isaacson: You know, you've just written a book called "The Unraveling," and you talk a bit about the authoritarian movements that have happened around the world, people clinging to power, and how this is a moment where we have to assert democracy. Do you think that that has been a theme, too, of Biden's decision?
Bauer: Joe Biden, throughout his entire administration, frankly, the very rationale of his candidacy in 2019, 2020 was to recapture the democratic soul of the nation or to protect it against what he thought the threat was from the politics of Donald Trump….
Isaacson furthered the myth of bipartisan Biden (at least when he wasn’t attacking Trump and his supporters as a threat to democracy):
Isaacson: The book you wrote, "The Unraveling," talks about how polarized we've become. Joe Biden seemed like he could have been an antidote to that. He was somebody always worked across the aisle, and to some extent, during his presidency, he got bipartisan bills, especially the infrastructure one. Do you think that part of his legacy will be that he tried to tamp down the partisanship or was that impossible?
There was one question on the disastrous debate. (Bauer played Trump in debate prep.) Bauer claimed this was unexpected: "I thought it was aberrational. It's nothing that I would have forecast or predicted or that he would have forecast or predicted, and I don't think it represents in any way what another debate would have been like."
After more of Bauer’s Biden-buffing (“Joe Biden accomplished an enormous amount”) Isaacson set up Bauer to rebut Republicans contesting Harris’s ballot eligibility (this, after liberals tried mightily to knock Trump off state ballots).
Isaacson: The Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has said that they're going to use, the Republicans, a lot of legal methods to challenge the ballots in various states where the ballots of now would have Kamala Harris and a running mate. To what extent are there some legal issues involved with that? And do you think that it's -- the Republicans should be testing that in court rather than just contesting it at the voting booths?
Naturally, Bauer agreed with Isaacson’s slanted premise, and suggested Johnson's effort was outrageous.
Bauer: I think the way you put the question, I think, suggests the right answer….
After the Biden-buffing came the Trump-trashing, courtesy of guest and PBS fixture Never-Trumper Sarah Longwell, who, for a “Republican,” seemed suspiciously enthused about the prospect of a presidency under arch-liberal Kamala Harris, while mocking Trump for now being “the oldest nominee for president ever.”
Sarah Longwell, Executive Editor of Republican Voters Against Trump: ….she has the chance to reset that narrative now. And I think by being energetic, by going on offense against Trump, by prosecuting a case against Trump, something Joe Biden had become incapable of doing, she can really turn this race around….
Golodryga noted Atlantic writer Tim Alberta’s tweet about the candidate switch, insisting that it would be incredibly “problematic” for Trump’s campaign. Longwell agreed.
Longwell: ….what they're going to do is they're going to bring out the absolute worst in Donald Trump and in his supporters. They will -- you already hear them saying it, where they call Kamala Harris, you know, a DEI president, and they'll try to do that. They'll try to run that play. But that doesn't reflect particularly well on them….
When asked if she thinks there’ll be a Trump-Harris debate, Longwell got in one more dig.
Golodryga: He’s already saying ABC won't be fair. It should be done on Fox News. We'll see where that falls.
Longwell: Less embarrassing for him.
