We’ve shown how Newsmax’s coverage of President Biden’s State of the Union address was largely negative, with flashes of pro-Trump propaganda. Both unsurprisingly continued in the days after the speech. John Gizzi used a March 8 article to cite historians to claim the speech was “unusually combative and highly partisan”:
Many Republicans and conservatives will likely agree that President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address on Thursday was unusually combative and highly partisan.
For the most part, that reaction was predictable.
But another, very different group that is long familiar with the State of the Union Address and how it has evolved through the years, concluded the same thing — American historians.
“This was a campaign speech — 2020 on steroids,” Arizona State University Prof. Donald Critchlow, Director of the Center for American Institutions, told Newsmax.
“If there are problems in America, it’s because of his [President Joe Biden] predecessor who sought to destroy democracy,” he added. “National debt: It went up under [former President Donald] Trump. Inflation: Blame Trump. Border crisis: Blame Republicans, even though a Democratic-controlled Congress in his first term did not enact his immigration legislation that would have allowed Dreamers to become citizens. And of course, there was reproductive freedom, which he blamed on the Supreme Court, singling them out, for overturning Roe — which actually restricted Abortion on Demand.”
Critchlow added that “for all his bluster, bellowing, and playing to the Democratic enthusiasts, he proved obvious to the state of the union in 2024.”
Gizzi didn’t mention that Critchlow is a right-leaning historian who wrote a book on how Republicans can win elections. He also didn’t mention that Donald Trump’s last State of the Union before the 2020 election was also quite partisan.
Eric Mack served up some concern-trolling from Trump in a March 9 article:
Making a call for unity while continuing to bash President Joe Biden for his “hate-filled rant” at the State of the Union, former President Donald Trump extended a hand to “disillusioned” Democrats disenchanted with the “worst president in history.”
“If you’re disillusioned Democrat, today I extend an open hand — and I ask you to join us on this noble quest to saving our country,” Trump told his campaign rally in Rome, Georgia, on Saturday night in a speech that aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 streaming platform.
“Two nights ago, we all heard Crooked Joe’s angry, dark, hate-filled rant of a State of the Union address. Joe Biden gave the most divisive, partisan, radical, and extreme speech ever delivered by a president in that chamber. It’s not even close. Rather than trying to bring our country together, he tried to cling to power by tearing our country apart.”
Mack also served up another, more typical bit of Trump stenography from the same rally, gushing that “Biden’s botching of Laken Riley’s name at his State of the Union did not make it past former President Donald Trump in the key battleground state of Georgia on Saturday night.”
Meanwhile, Newsmax offered defenses of Rep. Katie Britt’s disastrous Republican response to Biden’s speech:
- Trump Adviser to Newsmax: Sen. Britt Shines in GOP Rebuttal to Biden
- Sen. Tuberville to Newsmax: Britt ‘Did Very Well’ in SOTU Response
Newsmax also ran a wire article on how Britt “defended her Republican rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, as critics and a famous actor piled on with cutting riffs on her remarks.”
Michael Dorstewitz quickly cranked out a hit job of a column after the speech ended:
President Joe Biden delivered what many Americans hope will be his last State of the Union address last night.
The polarizing and divisive speech touched on Ukraine, Jan. 6, abortion, Obamacare, and gun control.
The issues Americans care about most — inflation, the cost of loving — were glossed over, but he covered them this week in other ways.
[…]The best thing Biden could have done last night would have been to be honest with the American people — to have said “I’m sorry, I really screwed this up, but if you give me another chance, I promise to do better.”
But honesty, like intellect, cutting taxes and hard work, has never been a part of Biden’s DNA.
Dorstewitz didn’t mention Trump at all, of whom all those things could be more accurately be said.