# President Joe Biden and the runup to the 2024 election **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 15, 2021, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384 "2021-11-15T14:54:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 65
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2024, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1292 "2024-05-10T21:09:45Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Interesting that he mentions Biden’s age but not Trump’s. Because Zakaria is a bit of a hack. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2024, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1293 "2024-05-10T21:29:01Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > is it because of the roundness of the number 80 Joe the President is _not_ 80 years old. His age is 3.Times 3. Times 3. Times 3. Not a “round” so much as a hyper-cube-shaped one. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2024, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1294 "2024-05-10T21:41:04Z")
Weirdly, the “Biden’s age” thing went away in dang near all media for several weeks after the State of the Union. Very recently, it’s been coming back from several outlets – starting with Russ Douthat’s piece in the staunchly liberal (?) _New York Times_ last week. Feels artificial and “_it’s a horse race_!” to me. We’re being gamed, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2024, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1295 "2024-05-10T22:00:30Z")
I meant that one is over 80 and the other under. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2024, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1296 "2024-05-10T22:15:40Z")
If RFK Jr. gets 14% of the vote in any state I will eat my hat. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1297 "2024-05-11T05:42:22Z")
RFK may be able to arrange to have a brain worm eat that hat for you. : ducks and runs : ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1298 "2024-05-11T05:44:50Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Weirdly, the “Biden’s age” thing went away in dang near all media for several weeks after the State of the Union. Very recently, it’s been coming back from several outlets – starting with Russ Douthat’s piece in the staunchly liberal (?) _New York Times_ last week. > > Feels artificial and “_it’s a horse race_!” to me. We’re being gamed, I think. I’ve noticed the same but hopefully it won’t take hold like it did before. I’m at a loss as to why the NYT appears to be slagging on President Biden like they have. It’s very disappointing. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1299 "2024-05-11T07:57:11Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > RFK may be able to arrange to have a brain worm eat that hat for you It would probably get more nourishment than it did in its other feeding grounds, where it apparently starved to death. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1300 "2024-05-11T09:51:29Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > I’m at a loss as to why the NYT appears to be slagging on President Biden like they have. It’s very disappointing. Has he done any interviews with them? Maybe they’re unhappy he chose Stern over them. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1301 "2024-05-11T16:39:23Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > I’m at a loss as to why the NYT appears to be slagging on President Biden like they have. It’s very disappointing. Isn’t it mainly just Douthat that’s the issue, here? Or are there others? ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1302 "2024-05-11T23:05:02Z")
This article from Politico explains a lot of it - [The Petty Feud Between the NYT and the White House](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/25/new-york-times-biden-white-house-00154219). Mostly bruised egos on both sides it seems. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1303 "2024-05-11T23:20:05Z")
Ah, thanks. Didn’t read entire article, but got a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2024, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1304 "2024-05-12T00:17:01Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > This article from Politico explains a lot of it - [The Petty Feud Between the NYT and the White House](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/25/new-york-times-biden-white-house-00154219). > > Mostly bruised egos on both sides it seems . This snippet halfway through contains the money passages. > The president’s press flacks might bemoan what they see as the entitlement of Times staffers, but they themselves put the newspaper on the highest of pedestals given its history, stature and unparalleled reach. And yet, they see **the Times falling short in a make-or-break moment for American democracy, stubbornly refusing to adjust its coverage as it strives for the appearance of impartial neutrality, often blurring the asymmetries between former President Donald Trump and Biden when it comes to their perceived flaws and vastly different commitments to democratic principles.** > > “Democrats believe in the importance of a free press in upholding our democracy, and the NYT was for generations an important standard bearer for the fourth estate,” said Kate Berner, who worked on Biden’s 2020 campaign and then as deputy White House communications director before departing last year. “The frustration with the Times is sometimes so intense because the Times is failing at its important responsibility.” > > **Biden aides largely view the election as an existential choice for the country, high stakes that they believe justify tougher tactics toward the Times and the press as a whole.** Some Times reporters have found themselves cut off by sources after publishing pieces the Bidens and top aides didn’t like. Columnist Maureen Dowd, for example, complained to colleagues that she stopped hearing from White House officials after a column on Hunter Biden. For many Times veterans, such actions suggest that the Trump era has warped many Democrats’ expectations of journalists. > > “They’re not being realistic about what we do for a living,” [Elisabeth Bumiller, the NYT Washington bureau chief] told me. “You can be a force for democracy, liberal democracy. You don’t have to be a force for the Biden White House.” EDIT: Also this: > But it was the paper’s willingness to legitimize rumors swirling around Hunter Biden’s past business dealings in Ukraine that left top campaign officials most incensed. In [a letter](https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1182137760670523392) to Baquet in October 2019, deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield blasted the _Times_ for [a story](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/politics/biden-son-ukraine.html) by reporter Ken Vogel and freelancer Iuliia Mendel focused on allegations by Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies that Joe Biden took actions toward Ukraine as vice president in order to boost his son Hunter Biden’s business interests there. The paper’s reporting, the letter claimed, legitimized a “debunked … conspiracy theory” that had been, to that point, “relegated to the likes of Breitbart, Russian propaganda … and regular Hannity guest John Solomon.” ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2024, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1305 "2024-05-12T00:31:38Z")
One more, same _Politico_ link: > **In [_NYT_ publisher A.G. Sulzberger’s] view, according to two people familiar with his private comments on the subject, only an interview with a paper like the _Times_ can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency**. Beyond that, he has voiced concerns that Biden doing so few expansive interviews with experienced reporters could set a dangerous precedent for future administrations, according to a third person familiar with the publisher’s thinking. Sulzberger himself was part of a group from the _Times_ that sat down with Trump, who gave the paper several interviews despite his rantings about its coverage. If Trump could do it, Sulzberger believes, so can Biden. > > “All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,” one _Times_ journalist said. **“It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.”** Great find, @Kolak_of_Twilo . Thanks for posting it. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2024, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1306 "2024-05-12T00:36:23Z")
On the one hand, Trump wants to deport American citizens, openly stated that he wants the oil industry to bribe him, and thinks Hannibal Lecter is a real person. On the other hand, Biden old. What’s a centrist to do? ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2024, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1307 "2024-05-12T00:38:02Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#): > > Isn’t it mainly just Douthat that’s the issue, here? Or are there others ? **Kolak’s** _Politico_ link has been an especially rich vein of info: > Aides in the White House press office and on the president’s campaign pointed to two recent examples of articles by the _Times_ that presented Biden and Trump side by side, emphasizing broad similarities and obscuring the proportional differences. [One piece](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/04/us/politics/biden-trump-health.html) by Michael Shear cast both Biden and Trump as restricting the information the public has about their physical health. Another in the paper’s On Politics newsletter by the newly hired Jess Bidgood [reacted to](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/10/us/politics/trump-biden-abortion-message.html) Arizona’s reinstatement of a Civil War era law outlawing abortion by framing Biden and Trump as two “imperfect messengers” on the issue, a gross journalistic injustice, campaign officials said, given Trump’s outsized role in appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned _Roe v. Wade_ . > > TJ Ducklo, a senior adviser on Biden’s campaign, blasted Shear’s story as part of an ongoing pattern of frustrating coverage by the _Times_ . “With limited exceptions,” he wrote in [a post](https://twitter.com/tducklo/status/1776589815753920718?s=46&t=Ldno6jwNv7t9hKomH8tgFg) on X, the _Times_ “continues to fail the American people in covering the most important election for democracy in 150+ years.” It was not the first time Biden’s campaign team publicly went after the _Times_ in a way the White House, for all its irritation, has not. **In February, the campaign blasted the Times and other news organizations for focusing more on the president’s age than Trump’s comment encouraging Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to any NATO country not meeting defense spending benchmarks. “If you read the _New York Times_ this weekend, you might have missed it buried behind five separate opinion pieces about how the president is 81 year old — something that has been true since his birthday in November — and _zero_ on this topic,” Ducklo wrote.** ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2024, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1308 "2024-05-12T02:40:19Z")
Wow. Stunning, truly. What a tool. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2024, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1309 "2024-05-12T03:22:58Z")
Not sure who you see as the tool here. The Biden camp has done a very poor job with reactions to their reporting. I find it disappointing the President won’t sit down with them for an interview. At the same time I see Sulzberger and a number of the writers for the NYT as being petulant and arrogant that they are not given the due they feel the great NYT should be given. They have done a lot to keep the age issue alive and this piece makes it look as if it is because they are offended. I’ve been a daily reader of the Times for 40 years and I find this deeply disappointing. And the Biden folks should get over any Dowd piece. She’s very good at times and at others is little more than a crank. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2024, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1310 "2024-05-12T03:32:17Z")
I don’t know about y’all, but I literally cannot think of a single President in my memory about whom the press _hasn’t_ complained about not giving them enough time. One example of hundreds: > **[Lack of Reagan Press Sessions Stirs Concerns](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-10-13-mn-13749-story.html)** > > The televised White House press conference, a fixture of the presidency for 27 years and a major forum for the public to judge presidential performance, has been virtually abandoned by President Reagan. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2024, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384/1311 "2024-05-12T03:40:01Z")
I don’t read the Times, so I ask out of ignorance-are they still as well-read and influential as they used to be? Would as interview there swing enough weight to significantly help Biden? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384.md?page=64) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/954384.md?page=66)