NY Times Publisher: The White House Is Furious About Our Coverage of Joe Biden’s Age

New York Times publisher A. G. Sulzberger gave an interview to the Reuters Institute recently and while most of the interview wasn’t terribly interesting, Sulzberger did give a hint about something the paper has been hearing from the White House lately.

We are going to continue to report fully and fairly, not just on Donald Trump but also on President Joe Biden. He is a historically unpopular incumbent and the oldest man to ever hold this office. We’ve reported on both of those realities extensively, and the White House has been extremely upset about it.

The Times has published some things that are pretty critical of Biden’s age, including the Ezra Klein podcast I wrote about yesterday. I’m sure the White House is worried that calls for Biden to step down could pick up steam if Biden has a few more embarrassing gaffes. Still this is one of those cases where it would be really interesting if the Times would report on these back-channel complaints from the White House instead of letting them remain mostly a secret. Were there angry words? Were there threats? Just how worked up about this topic is the White House behind the scenes?

You can get a sense of how seriously they are taking this by looking at some of the other coverage. NBC News published a story this week titled “Biden’s allies are stepping forward to vouch for him amid age questions.” The story makes clear this push is being organized by the White House.

In the days since special counsel Robert Hur released a report that described Biden’s memory as “significantly limited,” presidential appointees and friendly lawmakers have been stepping forward one by one to attest to his acuity.

Biden asks “pertinent questions” and cares about “minute details,” they’ve told news outlets. He is “very engaging” and detail-oriented. The White House went so far as to put out a memo name-checking senior officials from both parties who’ve said they found Biden to be mentally sharp.

But NBC was also able to find some Democrats who clearly weren’t committed to the White House talking points:

“The special counsel said the quiet part out loud,” said one former Democratic House member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering allies.

This former lawmaker recalled being in meetings with Biden, including a bicameral session at the White House three years ago, when he rambled off-topic and appeared to be lost in the nostalgia of his time in Congress.

“I think I share some of the concerns of the American people,” the former lawmaker said, using the plot line of a 1980s film to make a point. “Because if it’s really ‘Weekend at Bernie’s,’ who are the two guys carrying him along?”

In case there’s anyone who doesn’t remember it, Weekend at Bernie’s was a dark comedy about two guys who have to convince everyone around them that a dead man is still alive so they can continue to stay in his luxurious house in the Hamptons. In other words, this former Democratic member of the House is asking who is really running the White House.

Over at the Washington Post, the paper has decided to find its own Biden defenders by asking a group of “mostly Democratic” octogenarians for their opinions. One of them happens to be a Democratic organizer.

Gussie Farris, 85, a usually cheery Democratic organizer in Grand Rapids, was fuming after days of watching news coverage about the special counsel that she thought needlessly fixated on minor lapses in memory and what she saw as a juvenile throng of White House reporters shouting at the president during a news conference after the report was released.

Farris slammed her slight hand on a veneer conference room table, telling a group of seniors at a planning meeting for the Grand Rapids-based Advocates for Senior Issues that they should take age-related critiques against Biden personally.

“They are out there insulting us like we don’t know anything,” she said to nodding heads around the room. “I’m pissed off.”

I’m not surprised the Post is doing this but it’s really pretty silly. No one is saying that every 80-year-old is mentally diminished. Maybe Gussie Farris is still as sharp as ever. The problem is Joe Biden. He’s one particular 81-year-old and it’s clear to anyone who watches him that he is struggling. His memory lapses are frequent and obvious. Saying so is not an insult to every 80-year-old anymore than criticizing Trump is an insult to every real estate developer.

Democrats and the the White House can bang their hands on the table all they want but Biden’s age is a discussion the rest of us are going to have prior to this election whether they like it or not. I think it’s clear we’ve crossed that particular Rubicon when even Jon Stewart makes it an issue on his return to the Daily Show last week.

There are of course a lot of shots at Trump in this segment but the key line here comes later on when Stewart plays video of a bunch of Biden surrogates praising the president’s mental fitness behind the scenes. Stewart follows this up by asking “Did anyone film that?” In other words, how come what they tell us is happening when we’re not watching is so different from what we can see with our own eyes? That’s a question that isn’t going to go away no matter how many times the White House tries to spin it.