Morning Joe battles Axios founder over N.Y. Times' treatment of Joe Biden
A discussion about how the press is covering President Joe Biden's poor debate performance grew combative on Friday morning when MSNBC host Joe Scarborough went back and forth with Axios founder Jim VandeHei, accusing the New York Times of flooding the zone with Biden attack stories while ignoring Donald Trump's debate lies.
According to VandeHei, the Biden White House has been threatening reporters if they report on Biden's health, and now the Times is in overdrive on Biden stories.
With the Times' reporting coming under new scrutiny that dates back to their breathless coverage of Hillary Clinton's emails just weeks before the 2016 election that put Trump in the White House, Scarborough stated the venerable paper is back to giving the convicted felon ex-president a pass.
"They're in a massive panic," VandeHei said about Democrats. ""The New York Times has a story picking apart almost every sentence of the two radio interviews he [Biden] did; He did say some weird things in there. Imagine, even if you're at the top of your game, someone is scrutinizing everything you say. That's his reality if he stays in. "
"Jim, let me, I want to interrupt," said Scarborough. "You're so right. Again, everything, especially after that debate, is valid. But you go through the New York Times articles and look at that WAUK interview. I mean, when I ran [for office] at 31, you get on there and start talking fast, get a lot of stuff on your mind, and it's all over the place, you know? I wouldn't want to see the transcripts of my interviews."
"Right," the Axios founder agreed.
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"The fact they're going through the interview saying, well, here, he sort of stumbled and went to this or that, and there was a little stream of consciousness, I think it is absolutely ridiculous," the Morning Joe host continued. "Especially, again, when you look at the crazy s--t Donald Trump says every day. And the papers have already — including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal — they just say, 'Oh, yeah, he's crazy.'"
"Stack that up with what Biden is saying in these interviews, his Wisconsin interview, what he said Fourth of July, all of these other things, and as far as — you know, now they're seizing on, 'Oh, he said this. Forgot Mayorkas' name," he continued. "Do you know how many times I do this, I do this show and forget Mayorkas' name? This is at 7:30 in the morning instead of 8 at night."'
"Again, I don't want to go on, I'm not carrying the guy's water," Scarborough clarified. "I said what I said last Friday. But I went to Ireland to interview the guy, we did two or three things in Ireland, events in a day, I went back to the hotel wiped out. I read the paper the next morning and saw Biden did seven. It is a constant, steady schedule."
"This idea that we're going to hold Joe Biden to one standard and Donald Trump to another standard, which is really no standard at all if we're getting into the syntax and the crazy things he says," he added. "I want to see the New York Times write that story the next time Donald Trump gives a speech if his people ever allow him off the golf course or away from the Dunkin Donuts shop."
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