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Biden lashes out at female reporter for asking basic question, but not on the topic he wanted: 'You are such a pain in the neck'

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President Joe Biden lashed out at a female reporter Monday over a basic question about whether the Department of Veterans Affairs will require its staff to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

What happened?

While meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in the Oval Office, Biden demanded that reporters ask questions only related to the withdrawal of American troops from combat in Iraq, which Biden announced Monday.

However, NBC News reporter Kelly O’Donnell skirted that demand — and Biden chided her in front of everyone.

“Mr. President, Veterans Affairs is going to have a mandate for its health care—” O’Donnell asked before Biden interrupted her.

“You are such a pain in the neck, but I’m going to answer your question because we’ve known each other so long. It has nothing to do with Iraq,” Biden interrupted, rebuking the question. “Yes, Veteran Affairs is going to, in fact, require that all doctors working in their facilities are gonna have to be vaccinated.”

O’Donnell was recently elected president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, so she is well-respected among her peers.

What was the reaction?

Journalists quickly noted that Biden’s biting response to O’Donnell is not the first time he has publicly chided a prominent female reporter.

Glenn Greenwald, for example, highlighted an incident last month in which Biden rebuked CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, who questioned Biden about Russian President Vladimir Putin following a meeting between the two.

“Why are you so confident he’ll change his behavior, Mr. President?” Collins asked, referring to Putin.

“I’m not confident he’ll change his behavior…where the hell— what do you do all the time?” Biden screamed. “When did I say I was confident?”

When Collins questioned how Biden could describe his meeting with Putin as “constructive,” considering Putin refuses to acknowledge human rights abuses or cyberattacks against the U.S., Biden chided again, “If you don’t understand that, you are in the wrong business.”




‘What the hell’: Biden snaps at CNN reporter

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“A President inciting violence against journalists with language like this is never acceptable. And one can’t help but notice that this is the second time Biden has lashed out so insultingly and aggressively against a woman doing her job as a reporter,” Greenwald said. “In journalism we call this a ‘pattern.'”

Others noted that former President Donald Trump was literally accused of subverting democracy when he criticized media.

“[W]hy is Biden attacking our democracy?” Siraj Hashmi mocked.

“We must not allow this attack on a free press….does Joe Biden not know the sacrifices these people make every day?!?” Richard Grenell said.

CNN host questions whether Fox News, conservative media are 'killing people' over COVID-19 rhetoric

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In lockstep with President Joe Biden’s administration, CNN host Dana Bash implored Sunday whether Fox News should be blamed for Americans dying from COVID-19.

What is the background?

Biden’s administration began waging a war last week against social media platforms, and Facebook specifically, blaming that alleged “misinformation” about COVID-19 vaccines has discouraged Americans from being vaccinated, therefore resulting in deaths.

Facebook pushed back against the claims, suggesting Biden is only criticizing them because he failed to deliver on his promise that at least 70% of Americans would receive at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot by July 4. Biden, in fact, fell well short of that goal, according to CBS News.

What did Bash suggest?

While interviewing Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Bash widened the scope of blame. Not only should blame be laid at the feet of social media companies, but Bash suggested conservative media, like Fox News, should take blame, too.

“President Biden did accuse social media platforms of killing people. Do you think conservative media, like Fox News, are doing the same? Are they killing people, too, with rhetoric like you just heard [from Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham]?” Bash asked.

Murphy did not directly address Bash’s question, but said that people are put “at risk” if science is not followed and accurate information is not shared.

I think all of us, including the media, including individuals, health professionals, have a responsibility to share the truth about health, as science dictates, as science informs us. And unless we do that, unless we are honest about the consequences of our communication with people, unless we are rigorous about ensuring that what we communicate is actually sourced from science, and not from an opinion, on critical issues like the vaccine, then we are going to ultimately put people at risk.

Murphy added that he worries “all of this misinformation that’s floating around is having a real cost that can be measured in lives lost.”

“There are people all across our country, and I hear from folks all the time, who are struggling to make decisions about their health after this very difficult year we have been through. People deserve to have access to accurate information. They deserve to hear that from their leaders. They deserve to hear that from the media. They deserve to see that on platforms online,” Murphy said.

“They need that information to be able to make decisions to protect themselves and their families,” he added. “That’s the least we can do for them.”

Hey, Maybe the Walls Aren’t Closing In on Donald Trump After All

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Former president Donald Trump at a rally at the Lorain County Fairgrounds in Wellington, Ohio, June 26, 2021. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

Credit Ankush Khardori at New York magazine for noticing that articles suggesting “the walls are closing in on Donald Trump” don’t seem quite so convincing anymore, and recognizing that for the past five years or so, “often, pundits offered analysis that distorted the public’s sense of how the criminal-justice system really works and flattered the audience’s prejudices by suggesting that serious legal consequences for Trump might be just around the corner.”

The root of the problem is that there is a near-insatiable demand for news or commentary that promises or suggests, “that political figure you hate is about to be indicted …

MAGA Twitter Is Launching

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(Tero Vesalainen/Getty Images)

Jason Miller, a former spokesperson for President Trump, has soft-launched a new social-media platform, GETTR. The platform will officially launch on Independence Day, with the goal of creating a space for conservative (particularly pro-Trump) media online. The platform’s style mirrors the traditional Twitter interface while substituting Twitter’s blue theme for a crimson color palette. Politico reported on the story yesterday, writing that: 

GETTR is one of the highest-profile projects in a larger ecosystem of pro-MAGA tech and social media platforms that have blossomed on the right, largely fueled by a sense that Big Tech is attempting to silence conservative and pro-Trump ideology from being disseminated online.

How GETTR was developed quite unclear. Running a social-media platform is expensive, but the funding for GETTR has been kept a secret. Officially, a “consortium of international investors,” has backed the project. However, the Daily Beast reports that Miller partnered with Steve Bannon and an exiled fugitive Chinese billionaire, Guo Wengui, to fund the platform. Bannon and Wengui have a history of working together, and it seems Wengui had a personal hand in the app’s development.

Despite the connections between Miller, Bannon, and Trump, it is unclear whether the former president will actually join the network. Miller himself seemed optimistic when he appeared on Fox News to promote the platform, saying, “realDonaldTrump is waiting for him and ready to go.” However, reports have emerged that Trump may not join, which would significantly decrease GETTR’s chances of success. 

Joining the “cancel-free” platform offered by Miller may not be Trump’s end goal, but his dwindling influence over social media since his Twitter ban could force his hand. His blog, “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump,” shut down last month because of low engagement. The Trump team believes Trump’s political success rode on his effective use of social media. Thus, if the former president is looking to run in 2024, the campaign will probably look for a permanent social-media platform. It remains to be seen whether GETTR will be the former president’s new home or if Trump will remain a social-media vagrant. 

Our Ice-Cream Media

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President Joe Biden eats an ice-cream during a visit to Cleveland, Ohio, May 27, 2021. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

The media have developed a curious idea that every time Joe Biden has ice cream, it constitutes news. I cite:

I love that em dash, which sets off a portion of the sentence to indicate a surprise is coming but instead just continues down the same dopey P.R. path:  “Joe Biden likes people — and people like him!” “Joe Biden is a great father — and a great husband!”

This was one of dozens of similar examples of coverage of Biden hitting Wisconsin like a treat-seeking missile. In the rare moments when the media get to fire questions at Biden, they tend to be easily distracted by frozen props.

Politico this year granted anonymity to whoever told its reporter that Biden likes ice cream.

Bloomberg’s Jennifer Epstein can be relied upon to have the scoop on this:

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Sometimes reporters provide anniversary coverage of their own previous reporting on Biden’s fondness for ice cream.

Sometimes the president’s ice-cream consumption yields a “takeout” or long, researched piece about not just one incident, but many.

To be fair to Jennifer Epstein, she was equally dedicated when it came to the question of what ice cream Hillary Clinton was eating or discussing at any given moment and often went into detail:

Epstein also feels it is important to report on historical incidents of Hillary Clinton consuming ice cream in previous years. This one is a 2014 tweet of a 2008 treat.

Jennifer Epstein also covered Barack Obama’s ice-cream eating, joining forces with Obama’s spokeswoman to get the message out.

Ice cream tends to be associated with high levels of approval, low levels of controversy, and extreme levels of deliciousness, which is why political campaigns often try to associate themselves with ice cream.

Reporters who join in pushing this association are effectively acting as unpaid promoters of the campaign or politician. Which is why Jennifer Epstein has shown very little interest in, say, Donald Trump’s ice-cream consumption. Zero tweets on that, as far as I can tell. Reporters keep telling us it’s their solemn duty to stand up to people in positions of authority. If they want to convince us they do so for both parties, ceasing to echo the gauzy, soft-focus communications strategy of the DNC might be a step in the right direction.