The Media Research Center did a lot of ref-working before the first presidential debate. Tim Graham slipped in one more complaint about things beforehand:
Just before noon on Debate Day, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer worried out loud about how Donald Trump may “go after Biden’s family.” That’s how they describe raising the topic of Hunter Biden’s international influence-peddling, with the millions in foreign money being distributed around many members of the Biden family.
Republican analyst Scott Jennings suggested that’s not a “mover” for voters. Democrat analyst Ashley Allison said raising Hunter makes Joe sympathetic, but it will be great to tag Trump as a “convicted felon.”
Nobody has any shame that Democrats can play the “felon” card with Trump, but it’s a mistake for Trump to throw the “felon” card back in Biden’s face.
The difference, of course, is that Trump is indisputably a convicted felon while President Biden is not (Hunter Biden is a convicted criminal but, unlike Trump, is not a politician and is not running for office). Graham didn’t want to talk about that crucial distinction, though he did expand on it a bit in his June 28 column:
They also claim Hunter Biden is “not running for office” and never took a White House job like Ivanka Trump, so you can’t connect the father and son somehow. On the morning of the CNN debate, CNN’s screen graphic implied any attack on Hunter is unduly personal: “Biden prepared for Trump to attack his family.” It’s painted as rude to bring up Hunter Biden. It was never rude to attack Trump’s sons and daughters.
Again, Graham is being deliberately obtuse. Trump’s sons and daughters are prominent and vocal advisers and surrogates and have worked in his White House, while Hunter never had any formal campaign or White House job and has never served as a campaign surrogate.
After the debate, of course, the main thing it wanted to do is serve as a Trump campaign surrogate by hyping President Biden’s shaky performance. So in the day or so afterwards, it flooded the zone on that subject:
- CNN PANIC: Biden was ‘Dismal,’ ‘Not Coherent,’ Dems Want New Candidate
- Republican Calls Out CNN Panel Propping Up Biden, ‘Lying’ to All Americans
- MSNBC’s JOY REID PANICS: Biden ‘Extremely Feeble’, ‘Weak’, Had One Job
- ABC, CBS, and NBC Raise the Alarm Over Biden Debate Disaster
- Chuck Todd Admits Debate Disaster: ‘There Were No Clips Tonight’
- Cope: ‘CNN This Morning’ Rips WH Hiding Biden, Asks If He Was ‘Overprepared’
- Post-Debate, Martin Short Helps Liberals Cope By Singing ‘Cranky Doodle’
- Sad Scarborough Suggests: Time For Dems To Tell Biden It’s ‘Over’
- Jon Stewart Mourns ‘A******’ vs. ’25th Amendment Face’ Debate
- MSNBC’S BIDEN MELTDOWN CONTINUES: ‘We Are Confronting A Crisis’
- After Disastrous Debate, PBS’s Barron-Lopez Parrots Biden Campaign Happy Talk
- CBS Torches ‘Stumbling’ Biden for ‘Painful’ Debate, Argues Dems Can’t ‘Move Forward’
- Debate Disarray: The View Blames CNN, Wants New Candidate, Attacks GOP
Even though the MRC had plenty of partisan fodder for the right-wing grist mill, it still wasn’t happy — people were talking about Donald Trump’s performance, which was not all that great. Curtis Houck whined:
On Friday morning, NBC’s Today acknowledged reality that Thursday night’s CNN presidential debate showcased a “tough night” for President Biden, who was nursing not only a “hoarse and raspy” voice, but showed he’s in serious cognitive decline with “concerns growing” about his fitness for office.
That said, however, the Comcast network shamelessly minimized Biden’s porous night by bemoaning it “overshadow[ed]” a “torrent of lies” and “grievances from former President Trump”.
[…]Senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson played Biden spokeswoman by kvetching that “Biden’s struggles in some ways overshadowing the multiple lies an grievances from former President Trump as both candidates now look ahead to rallies today”.
“On stage in the presidential debate, missteps from the current president and misleading attacks from the previous one. From President Biden who is battling voter concerns about his age, a shaky start with a raspy voice, seemed to lose his train of thought when asked about the national debt,” she then added.
After conceding “First Lady Jill Biden escorting him off stage” once the debate ended, she deployed a classic conservative drinking game word: “Former President Trump pouncing on his rivals slip ups.”
She then reiterated the focus of the debate was also “a series of dodges and lies about the 2020 election” from Trump.
Houck didn’t dispute the accuracy of anything said about Trump — he was just angry that it was said.
Sarah Butler similarly complained that Trump’s performance was critiqued:
On Friday morning after the presidential debate, ABC’s Good Morning America claimed that former President Donald Trump made more mistakes than President Joe Biden. One of the biggest focuses in this debate was if Biden was mentally fit to serve another four years; however, he was not able to meet this hope Thursday night.
Co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos admitted that “from the start, Joe Biden struggled to answer questions”, but unsurprisingly added that “Trump launched a series of lies and misleading attacks.” He stated that “key figures from across the [democratic] party [are] talking about replacing Biden on the ticket.”
[…] [Correspondent Rachel] Scott explained that from the beginning of the debate, Biden spoke with a “raspy voice” and “at times stumbling and trailing off” even acknowledging that he was “unable to finish his thoughts.” Abortion, one of the key issues for the Biden campaign, was even a topic that the President didn’t speak clearly about.Scott then professed that Trump “deflected and he would not say whether he would accept the results of the November election.” She then played a clip of Trump clearly stating, “If it’s a fair and legal and good election, absolutely. I would have much rather accepted these, but the fraud and everything else was ridiculous.”
[…]Scott concluded by declaring that “Trump did make several false and misleading claims, many of which went unchecked or challenged on that debate stage.”
Chief Washington correspondent and three-time anti-Trump author Jonathan Karl wanted to take a jab at Trump saying it “was a rapid fire lie after lie, untruth after untruth.”
He continued to rant saying Trump had “ridiculous” claims like how “Nancy Pelosi turned down his effort on January 6 to send 10,000 National Guard troops to the Capitol” which was proven to be true from a video leaked a few weeks ago.
Butler didn’t dispute the correspondents’ claims that Trump lied throughout the debate.
Alex Christy groused that the candidates were fact-checked with Trump being found false more often, then trying to parse away one false rating:
After Thursday’s debate between Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the fact-checkers at PolitiFact and USA Today gave their recaps of both men’s most controversial claims. On the statements the two Facebook partners examined, Trump was rated false 100 percent of the time, while Biden was rated false only 44 percent of the time.
PolitiFact fact-checked Trump 16 total times, giving him a “mostly false” rating three times, a “false” rating on 12 occasions, and one additional “pants on fire” rating.
Some of PolitiFact’s evidence was quite puzzling. For instance, in the portion dealing with Trump attacking Democrats’ radical abortion stance, Trump mentioned Democrats support abortion “in the eighth month, in the ninth month,” which PolitiFact responded to by claiming, “Many of these Democrats have also said they support abortions past this point [24 weeks] if the treating physician deems it necessary.”
PolitiFact didn’t mention it, but some states (Alaska, Oregon, New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan, Maryland, New Jersey, Vermont, plus D.C.) also have no limits on abortion, and yet Trump was still slapped with a “false” rating.
Christy did not cite any example of a woman who has ever aborted a healthy fetus at or near the time of birth. He also refused to consider the possibility that Trump simply lies more often than Biden does.