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CNN
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Donald Trump’s allies in right-wing media have an issue forward of CNN’s presidential debate: They’ve set the bar too low for President Joe Biden.
For years, and notably over the previous few months, MAGA Media has portrayed Biden as a senile, mentally incapacitated aged man who can not bear in mind what he had for breakfast, not to mention run the federal authorities. That may sound like an exaggeration to those that don’t tune in to Fox Information or hear to speak radio, nevertheless it has been an actual and fixed theme within the right-wing media universe.
To help the narrative, these retailers and personalities have seized on Biden’s verbal gaffes (whereas ignoring Trump’s) and offered out-of-context video clips to their giant audiences — a misleading, however efficient technique that the Biden marketing campaign has struggled to meaningfully rebut.
Enter Thursday’s high-stakes political showdown. The talk, which will probably be one of many most-watched moments of the 2024 presidential marketing campaign cycle, will enable audiences from coast-to-coast the chance to observe an unfiltered Biden go head-to-head with Trump for some 90 minutes. Whereas the 2 will undoubtedly tangle over a number of points, the stage additionally will afford Biden a novel alternative to puncture the narrative he lacks the psychological health to be commander-in-chief.
That’s a fear for right-wing media figures, which danger seeing their bogus narrative about Biden being ripped up in actual time. As right-wing character Megyn Kelly even put it Monday, Biden will come out nice if he manages to easily “not die” throughout the face-off with Trump.
“The stakes couldn’t be decrease for a Joe Biden efficiency,” Kelly noticed.
To account for the looming actuality through which Biden has no bother strolling on stage with out the assistance of a handler (some in right-wing media had instructed Biden required former President Barack Obama’s assist to finish such a process), Trump’s media allies are already trying to find excuses. They usually’re getting noticeably determined.
One such declare boosted by Trump’s media allies is the conspiracy principle — which lacks any proof — that the president will probably be on performance-enhancing dietary supplements or medicine throughout the debate. That narrative, which was additionally floated after Biden’s forceful State of the Union speech earlier this yr, has been promoted by none aside from Trump himself.
“He’s sleeping now, as a result of they wish to get him good and robust,” Trump said at a campaign rally over the weekend. “So a bit earlier than debate time, he will get a shot within the ass.”
That narrative has been, predictably, amplified by Trump’s media supporters, who all ignored the truth that Trump repeatedly fell asleep mid-day at his personal trial earlier this yr in court docket. Fox Information host Jesse Watters, for example, performed into it on Monday’s episode of “The 5,” claiming Biden “goes to be taking photographs on the jungle juice” forward of the talk in order that he can seem energetic.
MAGA Media has additionally settled round a scapegoat to guard Trump if he ought to carry out poorly: CNN. The dishonest pro-Trump forces, notably the overt propagandist Sean Hannity, have leveled a barrage of assaults geared toward Jake Tapper, who will probably be co-moderating the talk alongside Dana Bash. Tapper, the hard-hitting anchor and CNN’s chief Washington correspondent, has been portrayed as a Democratic hack. Whereas it’s an absurd accusation, it’s one MAGA Media is gleefully pushing, even trying to take action on CNN’s personal air.
On Monday morning, CNN anchor Kasie Hunt abruptly ended an interview with Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, who repeatedly assailed Tapper and Bash as “biased” information anchors. After booting Leavitt from her program, Hunt famous that “should you’re attacking the moderators, you’re normally shedding.”
Hunt is, in fact, spot on. The hang-up, nonetheless, for MAGA Media is that they’ve compelled themselves right into a nook. Now, they’re looking for a approach to break away — they usually’re getting determined.