Media Defend Biden’s Age and ‘Poor’ Memory: ‘Ageism … Pushed by Right Wing Media’

Members of the established media in recent weeks defended President Joe Biden’s “poor” memory by claiming the president’s health is “acute” and that any speculation to the contrary is “ageist” and a “right wing media” conspiracy theory.

The media’s defense is the latest effort to support Biden, who is trailing in national 2024 polling to former President Donald Trump.

The media apparently felt compelled to defend Biden before and after special counsel Robert Hur described the president as an “elderly man with a poor memory” in his report on Biden’s classified document scandal:

• Hur described Biden as not competent to stand trial for taking classified documents.
• Hur said Biden could not remember simple facts about his life, such as when he was vice president or when his son Beau died.

NewsBusters, an organization dedicated to “exposing and combating liberal media bias,” recently posted a video on X highlighting how media “spent years gaslighting the public about Joe Biden’s mental acuity”:

The media have spent years gaslighting the public about Joe Biden's mental acuity. It's becoming more ridiculous every day. pic.twitter.com/zBZNx8V2dc

— NewsBusters (@newsbusters) February 9, 2024

Transcript:

MSNBC’s JOY REID: If you’re concerned about Joe Biden’s age, you probably don’t know Joe Biden.

CNN’s ANA NAVARRO: Biden is actually in good shape.

COMMENTATOR: Mentally he’s quite acute.

CNN COMMENTATOR 1: Any age who engages with him or reporters, we can see this. The gears of his mind are working.

CNN COMMENTATOR 2: The right wing media has so fixated on Biden and Biden purportedly having cognitive issues.

COMMENTATOR: It’s not just making an issue of Biden’s age. It’s lying. It’s saying he’s senile. It’s saying he’s demented, saying he’s out of…

CNN’s MATTHEW CHANCE: Russian television has been filled with speculation about President Biden’s age about his mental state of mind.

CNN COMMENTATOR 1: That’s an issue pushed by right wing media, but it’s not correct.

COMMENTATOR: Republicans on the on the other side have spent four years almost kind of weaponizing. Biden’s age against him. Trump is not that much younger than him.

CNN’s NAVARRO: Biden is just a couple of years older than Donald Trump.

CNN’s DON LEMON: Why so much attention on Biden says Trump isn’t much younger.

MSNBC’s NICOLE WALLACE: This whole vein is really really unseemly, I mean, ageism.
MSNBC COMMENTATOR 1: I want to say quite bluntly, there is some ageism going on here.

MSNBC’s EUGENE ROBINSON: I think there is some ageism going on.

MSNBC’s RACHEL MADDOW: Biden’s personal physician wrote that he quote remains a healthy, vigorous 80 year old male.

MSNBC REPORTER 2: Is a healthy, vigorous, 80 year old male

POLITICO’S JONATHAN LEMIRE: He had a good physical. His doctor says he’s vigorous

MSNBC’s ROBISON: The reality is nothing like the dystopian picture that the Republicans are trying to paint of this you know, honoring a president and his sharpest attack.

Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former GOP War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.