🧵Thread🧵

I feel like I’m losing my mind about the Biden autopen pardons.

The former president said he made every decision. His staff says that he didn’t actually make the final call on thousands of them.

We’re supposed to treat this as normal?

I try to unpack. ⤵️ This got new life from a Biden interview w/ @nytimes.

NYT leads by repeating Biden’s claim that he made the calls…burying the admissions that 1) he really didn’t & 2) where he allegedly did, the aids sending details to the autopen weren’t in the room when the call was made…

🧵Thread🧵

The coverage of the anti-ICE riots in LA is perhaps the clearest example of advocacy “journalism” in Trump’s second term.

Reading the reporting, you would never know the most significant fact: the American people support Trump’s deportations.

Follow along ⤵️ First, the facts about the riots.

You’ve seen the burning cars, looting & clashes between police & protestors.

Demonstrators blocked the freeway, attacked ICE agents, all in an effort to prevent the deportations of illegal aliens. Trump deployed troops to allow ICE to operate.

🧵Thread🧵

The new book “Original Sin” from Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson recounts the effort to cover up Biden’s cognitive decline ahead of the election. The authors point to many guilty parties.

The one glaring omission? Their colleagues in the corporate press. Follow along ⤵️ There are numerous dramatic reveals. The Biden team considered condoning him to a wheelchair? Maybe in his fog he forgot about the border?

But as I worked on a review for @commonplc, the one thought that I kept coming back to was that you can’t tell this story without the press.

🧵THREAD🧵

Biden’s cancer diagnosis is a tragedy I know first-hand.

But our sympathy can’t silence questions about Biden’s cognitive decline, clarified just days ago by the Hur tape.

The media tried to bury the story then. They’re trying again now.

I’ve got the receipts. ⤵️ When the report first came out in 2024, outlets rushed to demean Hur, accusing him of serving as a Republican hatchet man.

Just look at this take from @USATODAY, who assembled sympathetic voices to make the case that Hur “crossed the line.” They found an expert to call it a “disgrace” and then featured the obviously unbiased Eric Holder to lead a section titled “Way too many gratuitous remarks.”

The audio makes clear that Hur, if anything, played down how alarming the claims were.

It should go without saying, but the media cultivating this type of baseless hysteria about an admin for partisan reasons is much more of a threat to the underpinnings of our democracy than anything Trump has actually done.

Quick 🧵⤵️ A couple quotes:

“If you think that there’s this thing out there called America, and it’s exceptional, that means you don’t have to do anything” to stop fascism.

What? What does that even mean??

That if you, like millions of Americans!, believe in American exceptionalism…you’re a fascist?

Really?

Wow what a potentially valuable insight worth sharing with the American people when it mattered rather than saving for your book!

https://twitter.com/axios/status/1922236115815215108

This conversation started in June *2023* so if you believe the media wasn’t aware of it before the election I have a bridge to sell you.

🧵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.

🧵Thread🧵

I’m not sure people realize just how egregious some of NPR’s “journalism” has been. Amid the debate about defunding the network, I wanted to walk down memory lane to revisit some of its worst coverage.

There’s a lot. ⤵️ First, perhaps the most egregious display of activist journalism: their response to the Hunter Biden laptop story of corruption involving a major party candidate on the eve of the election.

Not only did @NPR not cover it, they bragged about refusing to do so.

When it’s a D // When it’s an R
Oh there are a lot of these.

🧵Thread🧵

If you missed Trump’s address to Congress last night, I wouldn’t rely on media stories to explain it.

Rather than report on a speech viewers found “inspiring,” the corporate press played PR for Democrats.

Wanna know why trust in the press is underwater? Look. ⤵️ A @CBSNews poll of viewers found “A large majority of viewers approve” of Trump’s message, overwhelmingly describing it as “inspiring,” rather than “divisive.”

The speech was certainly partisan - and viewers skewed right.

But the press’s own view appears to slant their takes.

Having worked on the Hill I get the ubiquity of Politico Pro and its cost.

But I think it takes an enormous suspension of disbelief to call it a conspiracy theory to look askance at the millions of dollars the Biden admin paid the paper that ran this hatchet job on his opponent.
Which, to be clear, is exactly what outlets like @CNN are doing.

Quick 🧵 revisiting corporate media claims on the Covid lab leak theory then (a “conspiracy theory,” “misinformation,” etc.) vs. now (“okay the CIA even admits it”).

@nytimes then // @nytimes now
@washingtonpost then // now

Okay quick 🧵 on the bogus claims that ICE went into a school in Chicago to deport students. Starting with @GovPritzker

More ⤵️ @RepMikeQuigley why are you promoting misinformation?

🧵Thread🧵

Trump’s return to the Oval Office has me reflecting on some of the worst “journalism” during his first term.

Of that long list, one in particular jumps out: the corporate press hype around the Steele dossier.

Do you *really* remember how bad it was? Follow along. ⤵️ Before I dive in, would really encourage you to read my full piece at @Holden_Court, because there’s too much to fit in a thread.

That said, surely you remember the dossier, a bunch of dramatic claims about Trump that even @nytimes now calls “discredited” open.substack.com/pub/drewholden…

🧵Thread🧵

Do you remember the media meltdown over Trump’s pardons? As Biden hands out decades-long passes to his family and friends, that concern is nowhere to be seen.

Biden no doubt wants you to forget this outrage in the glow of the inaugural.

Don’t. Screenshots help. ⤵️ When Trump announced pardons late in his first term, @nytimes said it “showed his willingness to use his power aggressively on behalf of loyalists” to “override courts, juries and prosecutors to apply his own standard of justice for his allies.”

To commemorate this tragic news, a quick 🧵thread 🧵of some of my favorite Jennifer Rubin tweets.

She will be missed. See why. ⤵️

https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1878804925775503780

My favorite: Andrew Cuomo defender and reply guy Rubin.

These are real tweets. She’s commenting on the spaghetti.

In honor of my securing the top spot on @StuDoesAmerica’s most frequent guests list, I wanted to highlight perhaps my favorite appearance: breaking down the media’s lovefest with former Gov Andrew Cuomo as he was killing countless New Yorkers.

https://twitter.com/studoesamerica/status/1878251139138716035

I mean, heinous news aside, look at this set up.

🧵Thread🧵

The biggest media story of Biden’s time in office is how the press covered up his cognitive decline…right up until he became a disastrous political liability for Democrats.

Wanna know why people don’t trust the corporate press? Look at these side by sides ⤵️ It’s stunning the pace with which the media narrative shifted.

In 3 weeks time, @washingtonpost went from blaming “cheapfake” videos misleading audiences as the cause of concern around Biden to a headline that even foreign officials were alarmed by Biden’s “accelerating” aging.

🧵Thread🧵

The gov’t finally released pictures of Biden with his son Hunter’s business partners.

You may remember the corporate press alleging for years that there’s no evidence Biden had any contact with Hunter’s shady businesses.

I think some corrections are in order. ⤵️ For years, the corporate press ran cover for claims that President Biden wasn’t involved in Hunter’s unsavory business dealings, particularly with foreign governments.

That was all a sham.

I think @nytimes should correct the record now that we know their reporting is false.

🧵Thread🧵

Biden’s pardoning of his son Hunter says an enormous amount about the president’s views of justice.

But it also says a lot about the willingness of the mainstream media—the nation’s noble fact checking corps—to repeat bogus claims that suit Democrats.

Remember? ⤵️ For starters, let’s revisit the coverage of how Biden wouldn’t do what he just did.

Biden said he wouldn’t pardon his son, no way. He would trust our legal system.

The media repeated it at every turn, without a shred of incredulity.

Here’s @washingtonpost

🧵THREAD🧵

The news that MSNBC may soon have a new owner (and that it might be a certain X power user) compelled me to finally open my “MSNBC conspiracy theories” screenshot folder and, woo boy, there are a lot.

If you’d like to revisit them, buckle up, and follow along. ⤵️ There’s nowhere better to start than with Russiagate.

Do you remember the promotion from @chrislhayes, @MalcolmNance, @maddow and others at @MSNBC that perhaps Donald Trump was a Russian agent?

I, for one, will not be forgetting.