By Becket Adams
Sunday, January 12, 2025
In 2017, Saturday Night Live marked the end of the
Obama administration with a maudlin musical number more befitting the Dear Leader of a
communist hinterland than the democratically elected president of a
constitutional republic.
Last week, USA Today managed somehow to embarrass
itself even more with its “exit interview” of President Joe Biden, a
floundering, pointless exercise in awestruck subservience. From lobbing
slow-motion, underhanded softballs of no public interest to failing to seek
clarification for unintelligible tirades to ignoring or allowing falsehoods and
blatant political spin, the interview serves less as a public service and more
as a reminder of why USA Today no longer holds the distinction of being
the most circulated paper in the United States.
At least SNL is supposed to be filled with clowns.
What’s USA Today’s excuse?
Consider, for example, Biden’s sudden pardon of his
ne’er-do-well son, Hunter. The president promised he wouldn’t do it. Then he
did it, making up weak excuses along the way for this obviously self-serving
act and calling down on himself well-deserved, bipartisan scorn.
Yet in her interview with Biden, Susan Page, USA Today’s
Washington bureau chief, set the stage thus: “Every parent can understand why
you would want to protect your son. Do you have any concerns that your pardon
of Hunter sets a precedent for future presidents? One that might be open to
abuse?”
Notice how she ignores the ethics surrounding the
president pardoning his son’s felony convictions. Notice how she avoids
acknowledging that the pardon represents a bald-faced reversal for Biden.
Observe how she frames the issue as a loving parent swooping in to rescue his
wayward child. Grab the tissues. Notice Page doesn’t even take the easy
palace-intrigue route, passing on the chance to ask the president to respond to
the Democrats’ criticism of his decision. Most importantly, notice how Page’s
question focuses on hypothetical abuses rather than the actual abuse staring
her right in the face.
In an interview that ran under the headline “A Career of
‘Honesty and Integrity,’” Biden responded to Page’s question:
I hope not, because I meant what I
said when I was asked whether I was going to pardon my son. But then I found
out two factors. Number one, that he had paid all his taxes. He paid them late.
He was fighting a drug problem. And he beat it. He’s been square and sober for
almost six years now. This was back in ’80, I mean excuse me, in 2000 and . . .
What year was it? Anyway, long time ago. And that he paid it all. And that
there were hundreds of people with only three, four, or $500,000 who were
being, moving on civilly. He paid all his taxes. He paid the back taxes. He
paid . . . He was late. He should have paid it on time. And that he was in a
court throughout a plea deal that was agreed to.
And then the second thing I found
out was that on this purchasing a gun, at the time, you have to sign a form if
you’re under the influence of anything. Well, I don’t even know whether they
got straight on the signing of the form. But the point was, no one’s ever been
tried on that. Nobody. And they potentially put him in jail for X number of
years for that. He had it for 10 days. Two days in his possession. No weapon,
no bullets, no movement, no leave. And it got returned. And no one’s ever been
tried for that. So he got former attorneys general and former leaders in both
parties, not office holders saying, “It’s not done. It’s not been done.” And
that’s why I stepped in, because of the nature of the way . . . By the way, it
was under my administration. And Trump wasn’t doing this.
You are not imagining things. Biden’s defense really
amounts to, “I didn’t know all the details of the case when I promised I
wouldn’t pardon him.” That’s it. And it doesn’t even hold water.
“In fact,” as National Review’s David Zimmermann wrote, “Hunter
did not pay his back taxes until 2019, thanks to a loan from [a] wealthy patron
and Democratic donor.” That plea deal? It “collapsed after the judge raised
concerns” about its highly unusual terms. And finally, contrary to Biden’s
assertion that “nobody” is tried on charges like those against Hunter,
“Americans are routinely prosecuted for being in possession of a firearm while
intoxicated or in the presence of illegal narcotics.”
But Page didn’t challenge Biden on any of this. She
didn’t question whether he believes his rationale will satisfy critics within
his own party or the donors who have threatened to pull their funding from
Biden’s presidential library. Instead, she followed up with some primo fluff.
“Hunter’s been open about his struggles. How is he doing
now?” she asked.
Yes, how is Hunter doing? An anxious America is dying to
know.
This specific interaction captures the interview’s worst
failures. Time and again, Page failed to follow up or press the president for
clarification on any of his eyebrow-raising or outright false assertions,
opting instead to treat him as a teenybopper would a teen idol. She doesn’t
pause for clarification, even when the president’s comments are nonsensical.
Consider when she asks Biden to explain what, exactly, he
feels most disappointed that he has “been unable to do.” The conversation
goes like this:
BIDEN: The specific that, there’s a
couple specifics that bother me that I couldn’t get done. And one was that we
are in a situation where I think that we would’ve been a hell of a lot better
off had we been able to go much harder at getting some of these projects in the
ground quicker. And to . . . I shouldn’t admit this, but I will. I don’t think
that Donald Trump knows as much substantively as I do about these things. But
when we came along with the rescue plan, guess what? He signed his name for that
check, the first check that went out to those families, all of which he opposes
now. But, [inaudible] “Trump gave me $7,500 for my family.” So I don’t think
I’ve been very good at —
PAGE: Taking credit?
BIDEN: Or not so much me, but
establish that the government did this for you. It wasn’t . . It was . .
. Anyway . . .
PAGE: You spoke with so much heart
about Jimmy Carter when he passed.
Wait, what is Biden talking about? The president tried to
clarify what, exactly, he was most disappointed by, but his response was
completely unintelligible. Yet USA Today’s Page simply moved on to Jimmy
Carter. Isn’t she curious about the answer to her own question? Onward and
upward, I suppose.
Next, there’s this moment where the president alleges a
flat-out falsehood:
PAGE: Do you believe you could have
won in November?
BIDEN: It’s presumptuous to say
that, but I think yes, based on the polling that . . .
PAGE: Do you think you would’ve had
the vigor to serve another four years in office?
No! Don’t skip to “vigor”! Polling consistently showed
the president trailed Trump, even before Biden’s disastrous debate on June 27.
The hosts of Pod Save America, former aides in the Obama White House,
also claimed that Biden’s internal data showed he was heading for a bad defeat
in November. Is Biden lying or mistaken? If it’s the latter, one might wonder
whether his handlers fed him incorrect information leading up to the election.
Did this contribute to his catastrophic decision to run for reelection?
There could be real news here!
Unfortunately, it seems Page didn’t even notice Biden’s
polling claim, much less consider that anything was amiss. Instead, we get
questions such as this: “Is there a single thing that does your greatest fear [sic]
about what President-elect Trump will do when he’s in office?”
What’s the point of interviewing the president if you’re
not going to ask him anything newsworthy or meaningful? What’s the purpose if,
when the president seems to make news, you choose to ignore it? What’s the
point of access journalism when practiced like this?
What a farce.
The best that can be said for the interview, its only
redeeming quality, is that it contains one moment of unintentional comedy: when
Biden complains about the news media’s lack of fact-checking.
When it comes to the things he is disappointed not to
have accomplished, Biden reflected on his supposed uphill struggle against
misinformation and disinformation. He explained that part of the problem lies
in how “information is shared now; there are no editors out there to say,
‘That’s simply not true.’”
He doesn’t know the half of it.
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