Thread by @DrewHolden360

🧵Thread🧵

Many in the media are trying to claim that the press was merely duped by Biden’s White House about the former president’s cognitive decline.

That simply isn’t true. The media actively took part in the coverup.

Don’t let them forget. I’ve got screenshots. ⤵️

I’ve done a number of threads on this but putting some of the most egregious stuff in one place.

Perhaps the most damming: Two weeks before the debate made Biden’s cognitive decline inescapable, @washingtonpost gave “Four Pinocchio’s” to allegedly edited videos showing Biden clearly displaying cognitive problems, dismissing them as “pernicious” efforts “to reinforce an existing stereotype” while quoting the White House to say the videos were “cheap fakes” — all to defend Biden against criticisms about his age and well-being.

That story came four days after a previous effort from @washingtonpost to write off these videos as Republican efforts to mislead voters: proof, the Post claimed, that “the politics of misinformation and conspiracy theories do not stop at the waters edge.”

To put a point on it: how can anyone claim that parroting the White House’s claims that real videos were “conspiracy theories” anything but an active cover up?

This isn’t about innocent objections. This is partisan hatchetry.

And these efforts go back months before that flurry.

When Special Counsel Hur put out a report revealing Biden’s cognitive issues, the @washingtonpost equated Biden forgetting the year his son died to anyone mixing up a name.

Again: this isn’t journalism. This is evasive PR.

And it wasn’t just the Post. @AP used the same exact framing to pretend the mental undoing of the guy with the nuclear codes was no big deal.

Not to be outdone, @CNN quoted an “assistant professor of communication sciences” to make the point that these slips “do not necessarily indicate a broader problem.”

Again, this isn’t reporting. This is obfuscation aimed at defending a political candidate.

Really. “The experts” said it was nothing to worry about. @NBCNews

We got rabid hand waiving from @nytimes. We needed medical experts to prove the evidence of our lying eyes that Biden was on the decline.

That was true for @nytimes in June, too. The week after the Post’s cheap fakes take, the Times lamented “the distorted, online version” of Biden promoted by conservatives, “a product of often misleading videos that play into and reinforce voters’ longstanding concerns about his age and abilities.”

What if — stay with me here — those concerns were right?

In coverage that would make Stalin blush, @nytimes published a piece back when concerns about Biden’s age were just starting, promoting his remaining “sharp and commanding in private” and his having “exhibited striking stamina” that even his young staff couldn’t match.

Really.

This headline and subhead from @nytimes presented without comment.

Nearly the entire media universe rushed to repeat these same claims — initially a concoction of the White House — to prop up Biden as the election approaches.

Here’s @ABC @NBCNews @CBSNews and @thehill

Some are worth calling out. Obligatory @MSNBC and Joy Reid mention.

This @AP side by side really captures what’s wrong with the corporate press.

And don’t forget, even as Biden was coming unmoored at the debate, the press were still trying to run interference for him.

@axios sent out an emergency tweet: “🚨 Biden has a cold.”

@CBSNews confirmed Biden had a cold. @NBCNews did too. Don’t worry guys. Just a cold! @KellyO

All the while, stories of how bad Biden’s cognitive decline was were waiting for the writing.

As the media was playing defense, White House guests were witnessing “troubling” signs.

@ABC, for surely innocent reasons, reported that fact a month later.

You aren’t imagining it. @TheWrap really did blame this all on Biden’s stutter.

I reported on this media conspiracy in progress back in February 2023 for @FreeBeacon.

The signs were all there. All the press had to do was look.
freebeacon.com/media/not-root…

So, no. I won’t let the press memoryhole this shameful turn.

Yes, the Biden White House lied about his cognitive decline. But the press played an active role in carrying that lie to the American people, in the lead up to an election.

They can’t walk it back now.

I think that means people of good faith need to keep bringing it up.

I had the chance to host the @AmerCompass Podcast last week, and naturally wanted to do so.

I got the one and only @MarkHalperin to join me to revisit the media coverup. commonplace.org/2025/04/25/how…

@AmerCompass @MarkHalperin If you like these kinds of things, give my newsletter, @Holden_Court, a follow.

There’s lots of look backs at media failure. open.substack.com/pub/drewholden

@AmerCompass @MarkHalperin @Holden_Court And as ever, if you’d like to kick me a couple bucks to keep tabs on the media, I’ve got a tip jar. paypal.com/donate/?busine…

@AmerCompass @MarkHalperin @Holden_Court I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: the biggest media story of Biden’s term is how the corporate press took part in the coverup of his cognitive decline, in an effort to support Biden in a presumed election against Trump.

It is beyond shameful. And we can’t forget it.