Even Jimmy Kimmel couldn’t help but notice the irony here. Joe Biden spent his first major media interview in months complaining that, er … the press won’t treat him fairly. Even better, Biden chose a late-night comedy show for his first one-on-one interview in months, which itself is *chef’s kiss* perfect. We’ve done lots of “major things,” Biden claims without naming a single one, and then tries to argue that he’s poor at communicating them, which, well …
Try to count how many sentences Biden starts and then fails to finish:
Biden says there's a lot of "major things" he's done, he just hasn't "been able to communicate it in a way that is, uh, um…"
He then starts rambling about reporters getting "clicks on the nightly news" and they cut to commercial. pic.twitter.com/uTiEu495C2
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 9, 2022
Clicks on the nightly news? Huh? Is he talking about remote-control clicks, or has he forgotten that TV shows use Nielsen ratings as their business metric?
At one point, Biden also claimed that the US had “the fastest growing economy in the world.” The Q1 measure of economic growth showed the US economy shrinking at a -1.5% annualized GDP rate. Granted, that was more of a technical retreat based on import/export imbalance, but it’s still not officially growing at all. Moreover, inflation is wiping out whatever gains workers have made during his presidency, which means personal economies have actually been shrinking for months in the US for the working and middle classes:
Inflation came up on Kimmel, but Kimmel never raised it. He was fussing about Manchin & Sinema. Kimmel joked about Trump and sharpies. Biden shifted to talking points about insulin costs. pic.twitter.com/ueOh20TRA1
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) June 9, 2022
While Biden was more coherent in this answer, he was even less honest about the results of his economic policies, and what’s more, trying to tell people not to believe their own personal experience in favor of believing Biden that they’re better off. It’s the same strategy the White House has been using since the summer of 2021, when they called inflation “transitory” and “growth.” No one’s buying it, and Kimmel’s not well read enough on the issue to even offer any kind of meaningful question to counter Biden’s spin.
By the way, if you’re wondering what Kimmel meant at the end of the first clip about “biracial commercials,” he’s referencing a very odd point Biden attempted to make earlier in the interview. It’s tough to comprehend what Grandpa Joe even meant by this. He apparently intended it as a paean to the younger generation, but this is just weird:
BIDEN: "Turn on the TV, look at the ads. When's the last time you saw biracial couples on TV? When's the last time you saw the way, I mean, people are selling products, they do ads and sell products. And they sell products when people, they appeal to people." pic.twitter.com/rzhdoCOsYc
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 9, 2022
There are biracial couples all over television, especially in ads. Ad companies have made that quite a theme, in fact, noticeably so for the last few years. Presumably their market research began showing positive emotional responses from those images; otherwise we wouldn’t see it nearly as much. That’s likely because Americans haven’t had problems accepting biracial couples for decades, despite whatever Biden’s insinuating here, and we like the idea of more affirmatively embracing their acceptance. I’d guess that the sociological research by ad companies found that companies using such images for their products gained goodwill for their brands, and their strategizing has turned it into a very popular and successful trend.
What that has to do with any point Joe Biden is trying to make about the next generation, I don’t know, since it has nothing to do with them. The teens and young adults are not running the ad agencies, they’re not running the companies buying the advertising, and for the most part they’re not the ones buying the products. Those decisions are being made by people already well into adulthood, well nigh unto middle age or older.
Anyway, while Biden complains about not getting a fair shake from the press, we can pretty clearly see why the White House only has him doing clown interviews. If Biden has a problem with his press coverage, then perhaps he should make himself available for real interviews on the issues. He’s clearly not up for those, however, as Biden’s barely coherent responses demonstrate, and maybe it’s long past time for the media to start reporting on that.
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