Never, and I mean NEVER, have we seen an administration try to tell the media how it should cover the news so blatantly.
The Biden campaign, for at least the third time, has sent a directive to the media on how it should be covering Joe Biden as well as how it should be covering Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
Biden giving the media its marching orders goes back to late 2021, when Biden was upset that the media coverage of his administration was negative.
At the time, Biden mostly ignored the media, refused to do interviews, and did not get the favorable coverage he enjoyed during the campaign.
Fox News's Jesse Watters did a segment, outraged that Biden demanded better coverage…
When the GOP launched its impeachment inquiry, another mandate came down from above.
The White House released a scathing memo to the media, literally telling the media how to cover the event.
In part, the memo stated:
"For years, Republicans in Congress have tried to muddy the waters by attracting media coverage of their allegations, and as they choose to move forward with impeachment, it is the responsibility of the independent press to treat their claims with the appropriate scrutiny.
"Covering impeachment as a process story – Republicans say X, but the White House says Y – is a disservice to the American public who relies on the independent press to hold those in power accountable."
That memo tells the media to scrutinize Republicans on the proceedings.
It stated:
"It's time for the media to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies.
"When even House Republicans are admitting that there is simply no evidence that Joe Biden did anything wrong, much less impeachable, that should set off alarm bells for news organizations."
Biden is now upset about a story that came out in the New York Times, believing the narrative was framed wrong and portrays Biden in a negative light.
The New York Times reported:
"He appears to be attending to general election voters by employing vagueness and trying to occupy a middle ground of sorts, perhaps allowing voters to see what they want to see.
"And traditionally in presidential elections, a relatively small share of people will vote based on any one social issue, even if that issue is abortion."
The Biden campaign responded to the article, calling out the New York Times for its approach while at the same time telling it to concentrate on his opposition, stating:
"Trump is an anti-abortion extremist who continues to brag about his role in appointing Supreme Court Justices who case decisive votes overturning Roe v. Wade."
Inbox: Biden campaign singles out the NYT.
“For the political press corp – especially our friends at the Gray Lady – it’s time to meet the moment and responsibly inform the electorate of what their lives might look like if the leading GOP candidate for president is allowed back… pic.twitter.com/gSKSmPhtHS— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) November 14, 2023
We have covered the previous orders, so I want to spend a bit more time on the latest memo.
First and foremost, Trump may be a lot of things, but an "extremist" on abortion is not one of them.
Trump merely wanted to have abortion mandated to the states, which is where he and many conservatives believe it belongs, mainly because we cannot agree on federal restrictions for abortion.
Regarding the orders given to the media, this may be some of the most disgraceful behavior we have seen from a sitting president.
Everyone gets upset with coverage and criticizes it, but to demand a specific narrative from the media… well, there is little thing called the Freedom of the Press covered in that pesky little document called the Constitution that means presidents are not supposed to interfere or dictate coverage.
That is done in communist countries where they have state-run media, not a democratic republic like the United States.
Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley described these memos as an "uncomfortable feeling of marching orders to the media," and I agree.
Just imagine the outrage that would be happening right now, both within the media and the Democrat Party, if a Republican administration had written a letter like that. They would be using words like "dictator" to describe the actions taken.
This is an outrageous abuse of power on behalf of Biden, and the media cannot tolerate it.