Latest news with #Hur
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
CNN's Tapper rips media smear campaign against Hur, WSJ report on Biden decline without mentioning own network
CNN anchor Jake Tapper has taken aim at the media's treatment of those who sounded the alarm about former President Joe Biden's cognitive decline before it was fully exposed at the now-infamous presidential debate, despite the fact that his own network was guilty of lobbing such attacks. As Biden was actively seeking reelection, there were two explosive moments that drew attention to his mental acuity before the debate. The first was in February 2024 with the release of the Hur report, which determined the Justice Department would not seek criminal charges over the then-president's mishandling of classified information, in part because a jury would deem him as a "sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory." The report also revealed Biden couldn't remember key dates, such as when he was in office and when his son Beau died. The second was in June 2024, weeks before the debate, when The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell report titled, "Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping," a months-long investigation by reporters Annie Linskey and Siobhan Hughes involving more than 45 sources who were either directly involved or briefed on meetings with Biden, who they said "appears slower now, someone who has both good moments and bad ones." Jake Tapper Declares Biden White House Lied About 'Cheap Fakes' After Cnn Peddled Narrative In 2024 On Bari Weiss' "Honestly" podcast Thursday, Tapper spoke about how the Biden White House went to "war" with Special Counsel Robert Hur, who he described to Weiss as a "serious civil servant," and how members of the media participated. "A lot of people in the media are very complicit and part of the smear machine against Robert Hur," Tapper told Weiss. "Robert Hur is smeared and cannot get a job for months. And he was – honestly, if you look back at what he said, that was polite!" Read On The Fox News App Shielding Biden: Journalists Shed Light On The Media's Cover-up Of A Weakened President He also praised "great reporters" Linksey and Hughes, noting they, too, were viciously attacked. "[They] are garroted by the Democratic Party and by journalists and by media critics, and by journalism professors and this whole industry of people who claim to be non-partisan assessors of truth… that had to have been traumatizing for them," Tapper said. What Tapper failed to mention was that CNN was among those "complicit" in Team Biden's attacks on Hur and The Wall Street Journal. Jim Acosta, who at the time was Tapper's CNN colleague, wondered aloud if Hur's assessment was "out of bounds," while CNN commentator and former Biden White House communications director Kate Bedingfield accused Hur of "editorializing" his report, and then-CNN political analyst John Avlon wondered why "some spin on the ball" was included. One of CNN's go-to legal experts, Jeffrey Toobin, scolded Hur for making "unnecessary points" about Biden's advanced age, characterizing the special counsel as a "Republican partisan" who "trashed" the president despite not bringing charges. "Part of that report was an outrage, was a disgrace," Toobin said at the time. "I mean, the idea that they that he would make such a big point of Biden being elderly is not something a prosecutor needed to do." Credibility Crisis: Press Dismissed Hur Report On Biden's Memory Issues Long Before Concerns Became Undeniable CNN liberal pundit Paul Begala similarly attacked the "partisan Trumper" for "editorializing way out of his league," even suggesting Hur was motivated to seek revenge on Biden for voting against William Rehnquist, for whom Hur had clerked, during his Supreme Court confirmation as Chief Justice in 1986 when Biden served as a senator. "This guy has donated to Republicans. He is a partisan," Begala said. "The only job he had was to indict or not indict, and to add all this — the only thing he didn't add was the legal disclaimer that this is a political ad in support of Donald Trump. It was a total cheap shot." CNN's then-senior political analyst Gloria Borger immediately took Biden's side, insisting, "This is not a man who's going to forget the day his son died" and echoed Biden's falsehood that Hur was the one who brought up Beau's death in the interview when, in fact, it was the president. Perhaps Biden's biggest defender at CNN at the time was its media reporter, Oliver Darcy (who has since left the network), who declared Hur's depiction of Biden's mental state "didn't match reality." "The acknowledgement from some, but not all, news outlets on Tuesday about the true nature of Biden's deposition marked another embarrassing moment for the national press, which has floundered at pivotal moments in the lead up to the crucial 2024 presidential election," Darcy wrote in March 2024. "The deposition transcripts not only indicated that Biden appeared fairly sharp during his testimony, joking with investigators and retelling stories with granular detail, but that Hur was misleading in how he presented some of the information included in his report." "Hur chose to portray the president as a mentally diminished elderly man who struggled to recall basic information during his deposition, raising alarm bells about whether he had the fitness to serve in the nation's highest office. Hur's characterization of Biden played directly into a years-long campaign waged by Biden's political opponents and the powerful right-wing media machine to depict the president as a senile, aloof man," he continued. Credibility Crisis: Biden's Late-night Allies Go Quiet After Damning Cognitive Decline Revelations Following The Wall Street Journal's report, several CNN anchors stressed that the paper's story heavily relied on Republican criticism of Biden and called out former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who gave the only on-the-record statement, for appearing to flip-flop on Biden's sharpness in previous comments (the Journal reporters later explained it as a tactical PR move at the time for McCarthy to bolster cooperation with the Biden White House). CNN's Boris Sanchez grilled Hughes over Democratic allegations that her story was "slanted," a question that would be unfathomable to a journalist covering Donald Trump. Darcy erupted at The Wall Street Journal, insisting its reporting "suffers from glaring problems," lecturing the paper it "owes its readers — and the public — better." "It is difficult to imagine that the newspaper, or any outlet, would run a similar story declaring that Trump is 'slipping' behind the scenes based on the word of top Democratic figures — despite the fact that the Democratic leadership has demonstrated a much stronger relationship with the truth in recent years than their Republican counterparts," Darcy wrote. Credibility Crisis: Wall Street Journal Report On Biden 'Slipping' Was Smeared By Media "More broadly speaking, The Journal's piece pointed to a continued problem roiling the news media as it covers the 2024 election. Trump is permitted to fall asleep in court and make nonsensical public statements on a routine basis without any serious questions raised about his mental acuity," the ex-CNN pundit continued. "Meanwhile, Biden is judged on an entirely different standard." A spokesperson for CNN declined to comment. Original article source: CNN's Tapper rips media smear campaign against Hur, WSJ report on Biden decline without mentioning own network
New York Post
6 days ago
- Health
- New York Post
CNN's Jake Tapper rips media smear campaign against Hur, WSJ report on Biden decline without mentioning own network
CNN anchor Jake Tapper has taken aim at the media's treatment of those who sounded the alarm about former President Joe Biden's cognitive decline before it was fully exposed at the now-infamous presidential debate, despite the fact that his own network was guilty of lobbing such attacks. As Biden was actively seeking reelection, there were two explosive moments that drew attention to his mental acuity before the debate. The first was in February 2024 with the release of the Hur report, which determined the Justice Department would not seek criminal charges over the then-president's mishandling of classified information, in part because a jury would deem him as a 'sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.' The report also revealed Biden couldn't remember key dates, such as when he was in office and when his son Beau died. The second was in June 2024, weeks before the debate, when The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell report titled, 'Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping,' a months-long investigation by reporters Annie Linskey and Siobhan Hughes involving more than 45 sources who were either directly involved or briefed on meetings with Biden, who they said 'appears slower now, someone who has both good moments and bad ones.' 5 Jake Tapper appears during a book conversation in New York City on May 27, 2025. Getty Images On Bari Weiss' 'Honestly' podcast Thursday, Tapper spoke about how the Biden White House went to 'war' with Special Counsel Robert Hur, who he described to Weiss as a 'serious civil servant,' and how members of the media participated. 'A lot of people in the media are very complicit and part of the smear machine against Robert Hur,' Tapper told Weiss. 'Robert Hur is smeared and cannot get a job for months. And he was – honestly, if you look back at what he said, that was polite!' He also praised 'great reporters' Linksey and Hughes, noting they, too, were viciously attacked. '[They] are garroted by the Democratic Party and by journalists and by media critics, and by journalism professors and this whole industry of people who claim to be non-partisan assessors of truth… that had to have been traumatizing for them,' Tapper said. 5 President Joe Biden is helped up by Secret Service and Air Force Academy officials after falling on stage during the Air Force Academy graduation in Colorado Springs on June 1, 2023. AFP via Getty Images What Tapper failed to mention was that CNN was among those 'complicit' in Team Biden's attacks on Hur and The Wall Street Journal. im Acosta, who at the time was Tapper's CNN colleague, wondered aloud if Hur's assessment was 'out of bounds,' while CNN commentator and former Biden White House communications director Kate Bedingfield accused Hur of 'editorializing' his report, and then-CNN political analyst John Avlon wondered why 'some spin on the ball' was included. One of CNN's go-to legal experts, Jeffrey Toobin, scolded Hur for making 'unnecessary points' about Biden's advanced age, characterizing the special counsel as a 'Republican partisan' who 'trashed' the president despite not bringing charges. 'Part of that report was an outrage, was a disgrace,' Toobin said at the time. 'I mean, the idea that they that he would make such a big point of Biden being elderly is not something a prosecutor needed to do.' CNN liberal pundit Paul Begala similarly attacked the 'partisan Trumper' for 'editorializing way out of his league,' even suggesting Hur was motivated to seek revenge on Biden for voting against William Rehnquist, for whom Hur had clerked, during his Supreme Court confirmation as Chief Justice in 1986 when Biden served as a senator. 'This guy has donated to Republicans. He is a partisan,' Begala said. 'The only job he had was to indict or not indict, and to add all this — the only thing he didn't add was the legal disclaimer that this is a political ad in support of Donald Trump. It was a total cheap shot.' CNN's then-senior political analyst Gloria Borger immediately took Biden's side, insisting, 'This is not a man who's going to forget the day his son died' and echoed Biden's falsehood that Hur was the one who brought up Beau's death in the interview when, in fact, it was the president. 5 US State's Attorney Robert Hur speaks to the press after a court hearing in Baltimore on Nov. 21, 2019. TNS via Getty Images Perhaps Biden's biggest defender at CNN at the time was its media reporter, Oliver Darcy (who has since left the network), who declared Hur's depiction of Biden's mental state 'didn't match reality.' 'The acknowledgement from some, but not all, news outlets on Tuesday about the true nature of Biden's deposition marked another embarrassing moment for the national press, which has floundered at pivotal moments in the lead up to the crucial 2024 presidential election,' Darcy wrote in March 2024. 'The deposition transcripts not only indicated that Biden appeared fairly sharp during his testimony, joking with investigators and retelling stories with granular detail, but that Hur was misleading in how he presented some of the information included in his report.' 'Hur chose to portray the president as a mentally diminished elderly man who struggled to recall basic information during his deposition, raising alarm bells about whether he had the fitness to serve in the nation's highest office. Hur's characterization of Biden played directly into a years-long campaign waged by Biden's political opponents and the powerful right-wing media machine to depict the president as a senile, aloof man,' he continued. 5 President Joe Biden stumbles up the stairs of Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews. C-SPAN Following The Wall Street Journal's report, several CNN anchors stressed that the paper's story heavily relied on Republican criticism of Biden and called out former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who gave the only on-the-record statement, for appearing to flip-flop on Biden's sharpness in previous comments (the Journal reporters later explained it as a tactical PR move at the time for McCarthy to bolster cooperation with the Biden White House). CNN's Boris Sanchez grilled Hughes over Democratic allegations that her story was 'slanted,' a question that would be unfathomable to a journalist covering Donald Trump. Darcy erupted at The Wall Street Journal, insisting its reporting 'suffers from glaring problems,' lecturing the paper it 'owes its readers — and the public — better.' 'It is difficult to imagine that the newspaper, or any outlet, would run a similar story declaring that Trump is 'slipping' behind the scenes based on the word of top Democratic figures — despite the fact that the Democratic leadership has demonstrated a much stronger relationship with the truth in recent years than their Republican counterparts,' Darcy wrote. 5 President Joe Biden makes the sign of the cross during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York City. Reuters 'More broadly speaking, The Journal's piece pointed to a continued problem roiling the news media as it covers the 2024 election. Trump is permitted to fall asleep in court and make nonsensical public statements on a routine basis without any serious questions raised about his mental acuity,' the ex-CNN pundit continued. 'Meanwhile, Biden is judged on an entirely different standard.' A spokesperson for CNN declined to comment.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
No Regrets
Despicable. Outrageous. A smear. That's how Senate Democrats described special counsel Robert Hur's February 2024 report on President Joe Biden, in which Hur described Biden as 'a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.' More than a year later, the Hur report—in which the prosecutor explained why he opted not to charge Biden with classified records violations—has come back into focus with the release of the new book Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. The Dispatch's Michael Warren and Steve Hayes noted earlier this week that the release of the book and audio recordings of the Hur-Biden interviews is a vindication of Hur. Original Sin is 'an authoritative, detailed, and devastating account of one of the most consequential scandals in modern American history,' Hayes wrote, and a section on Hur is 'the most powerful part of the book.' Hur's description of Biden was not only accurate—as Biden's devastating performance at the June 2024 presidential debate with Donald Trump and subsequent decision to drop out of the race would reveal. It marked the last potential opportunity for Democrats to push out the president with time for a new candidate to run a real campaign. But rather than take that difficult but wiser path in February 2024, congressional Democrats circled the wagons around Biden. In the Capitol this week, The Dispatch asked a number of Senate Democrats if they had any regrets about how they reacted to Hur's report or thought they owed him an apology. None did. 'It is outrageous the way [Robert Hur] disrespected and maligned the president,' Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota said in February 2024. 'What he said about the president not remembering the death of his beloved son [Beau] is just so despicable.' Hur reported that Biden was unable to recall the date of Beau Biden's death by 'several' years, and audio of the Hur-Biden interview confirmed the president said that Beau, who died in 2015, had 'either been deployed or is dying' in the 2017-18 timeframe. Given all that we know now, does Smith regret her comments? 'At the time, I had been around the president, and in the times I had been around him, he appeared to be functioning well and was on top of it, so that's what I thought at the time,' Smith told The Dispatch in the Capitol this week. Does she think Hur deserves an apology? 'That's just the way it rolls,' Smith replied. Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine said in February 2024 that Hur was a 'grandstander not a prosecutor,' adding that he expected Biden would be 'very vigorously engaged' when the campaign heated up. In the Capitol this week, Kaine told The Dispatch: 'I had one interaction with Joe Biden in the last 18 months, and it was the State of the Union. And he was fantastic.' He said he didn't owe Hur an apology because he had included information 'extraneous to his report.' As Hur explained at the time, he needed to include in his report his rationale for why he declined to prosecute Biden on the documents charges—and his rationale relied heavily on his belief a jury would not convict a man with Biden's apparent memory problems. Former Obama administration official Tommy Vietor posted on X earlier this week that the book Original Sin caused him to reevaluate his February 2024 attack on Hur. 'I found the context about the Hur report to be some of the most interesting/revelatory information in ORIGINAL SIN,' Vietor posted on X. 'At the time, Hur's comments about Biden being an 'elderly man with a poor memory' seemed like Jim Comey-style inappropriate editorializing about a non-charging decision. However, the book made me realize how important that context was for Hur in explaining his decision NOT to charge Biden, and I now feel that many of the attacks on Hur, including by me, weren't totally fair.' But there was no such public rethinking of attacks on Hur among congressional Democrats this week. 'When a prosecutor decides against bringing charges, generally, there's no public announcement,' Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut told The Dispatch. Blumenthal called Hur's comments 'gratuitous and unnecessary' back in February 2024. 'Whether [Hur is] telling the truth or not, there are things prosecutors don't get to say,' Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island told The Dispatch this week. 'I think it was out of line.' Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California, who said last year that Hur chose to 'politically slime' Biden, declined to take a question from The Dispatch as he rushed to a vote. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania said in February 2024 of Hur's report: 'It was just a smear and cheap shots and just taking things out of context, or even just inventing.' In the Capitol this week Fetterman, who has had questions raised about his own mental status following an in-depth report in New York magazine, did not directly address his criticism of Hur when asked about it. 'I don't know why we're still talking about Biden,' Fetterman told The Dispatch, adding: 'Honestly, I never thought the race was winnable anyway.' Asked about the Hur report this week, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut simply told The Dispatch: 'I didn't pay much attention to that report when it came out.' But he and others probably should have been paying attention. The Hur report came on the heels of Biden declining to sit for an softball interview before the Super Bowl—a traditional stop that is functionally a multi-million dollar campaign ad that reaches exactly the type of voter who doesn't pay much attention to politics. Days before the Hur report, Biden had confused French president Emmanuel Macron for President Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996. The very same week, he confused recent German Chancellor Angela Merkel for Helmut Kohl, who was chancellor in the 1990s. Any one of these things in isolation might have been written off as nothing serious, but adding this public evidence together should have been setting off alarm bells—before the Hur report came out. Congressional Democrats could have responded to the report by demanding that Biden immediately release audio of his interview with Hur and immediately prove himself in public interviews. Instead, they chose to shoot the messenger.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ex-Biden DOJ official slams Democratic Party for 'lying to everyone,' blasting cabinet over Hur report
A former Department of Justice official, Xochitl Hinojosa, called out members of the Democratic Party on Tuesday for "lying to everybody" about former President Joe Biden when it came to Robert Hur's report, which was dismissed as "gratuitous" at the time. "I was at the Justice Department at the time when we released the Hur report, and he was, the entire White House infrastructure at the time, was calling the report gratuitous, and said that Rob Hur should have never called him 'a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.' And every Democratic pundit, many reporters, were out there saying that it was inappropriate for Rob Hur to say that. And the reality is, the whole reason why he put that in is because it was his whole reason not to prosecute," Hinojosa, who worked as the Director of Public affairs at the DOJ, said during CNN's "NewsNight." Audio from Hur's interview with Biden was released on Friday, and showed the former president struggling with words and key memories during the interview. Axios reporter Alex Thompson was on the panel as well to discuss the reporting about the former president from his new book, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," which he published with CNN host Jake Tapper. "So it's really infuriating to hear this happening in the Spring of 2024, around the time that the Hur report was released and certain aspects in Alex and Jake's reporting really talk about the timeframe being Fall of 2023, whenever he did his interview with Rob Hur, as well as early 2024, when was the release of the report. And so it's just, it's really frustrating, I think as a Democratic Party, hearing now that they were lying to everybody, and not only were they lying to everybody, but they were bashing their own cabinet when it came to the Hur report," Hinojosa added. Hur Transcript Confirms Biden Memory Lapses, Contradicts President's Claim About Exchange Over Son's Death Biden officials such as Karine Jean-Pierre and Ian Sams, as well as former Vice President Kamala Harris and former DHS Secretary Mayorkas, deemed the Hur report "gratuitous" after it was released, because Hur declined to charge the former president over the mishandling of classified documents due to his memory lapses. Read On The Fox News App "The reality is, that report, that part of the report does not live in reality. It just doesn't, it is gratuitous," Jean-Pierre said at the time, responding to a question about Biden's memory. "It is unacceptable and it does not live in reality." Democratic Reps. Ro Khanna, Jamie Raskin, and Daniel Goldman also deemed the report unnecessary and gratuitous at the time. Audio from the interview showed that Biden admitted he kept documents about Afghanistan for "posterity's sake." Cnn Host Suggests Robert Hur 'Undersold' Extent Of Biden Memory Lapses During Special Counsel Interview Click Here For More Coverage Of Media And Culture When asked about a classified document on Afghanistan found at his lake house, Biden said at first he wasn't sure how the document got there, but then admitted, "I guess I wanted to hang on to it for posterity's sake." Fox News' Brie Stimson and Brooke Singman contributed to this article source: Ex-Biden DOJ official slams Democratic Party for 'lying to everyone,' blasting cabinet over Hur report
Miami Herald
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Yes, there was a conspiracy to hide Joe Biden's decline
For the last 25 years, American politics has been roiled by conspiracy theories. Whether it was the claim that 9/11 was an inside job, that Republicans stole the 2004 election, that Democrats ran a Satan-worshipping child abuse racket out of a DC pizza joint or stole the 2020 election, they had a reassuring tendency to be wrong. After listening to the Hur tapes released on Friday, the claim that a vast left-wing conspiracy kept Joe Biden in power during his first term and tried to keep him in power for a second term when he could not do the job is true. Democrats including members of the Cabinet, leaders in Congress, political consultants and White House staffers from lowly personal aides all the way to the chief of staff hid the fact that the president wasn't functional at all times – maybe for years. Biden's memory lapses The October 2023 interviews of Joe Biden by Robert Hur as part of the Justice Department investigation of the president's Delaware garage larded with top secret documents reveal a credible president for about the first hour. After that the memory lapses of basic facts, long silences, sentences that just trail off into nothing and typical elderly reminiscences of events long past, reveal a man who shouldn't have been trusted with the nuclear codes. As a New York Times reporter put it, 'Again and again, Mr. Biden answers the prosecutor not as someone under federal investigation but as an aging politician recounting his life story for posterity.' When Hur described Biden as more well-meaning old man than sharp political operator, Hur was telling the unvarnished truth. That doesn't just matter for journalistic fact-mavens who like the truth to be out there as a matter of principle. It matters for Americans who want a president capable of performing all his duties big and small. For very practical reasons, the presidency is a 24/7 job. You never know when a terror attack is going to hit just after you've had a full day of stressful meetings. You never know when Russia is going to invade a neighbor in the middle of the night. Hurricanes, earthquakes and the deaths of Supreme Court justices don't tend to happen at convenient times. The extent of the 'cover-up' is revealed in several new books that outline the knowledge and involvement of dozens of high government officials who strategized on how to minimize Biden's exposure to the public, who managed his schedule to cater to Biden's fragile mental state and who went before the cameras to claim that Biden was sharp as a tack. Since we now undeniably know that a fully-functioning president was not always available for unknown periods over the last four years, the people responsible for covering it up and then attempting to foist an inadequate president on us need to be held accountable. Many of us quite reasonably wonder who was in charge when Biden was not available. Operation Memory Care In the years of conspiracy theories that preceded Operation Memory Care across government, social media and academia, there grew a large apparatus aimed at getting Americans to stick to the facts and drop all the conspiracy talk. Perhaps it would be more helpful to the cause if the people at the peak of political power and responsibility did not engage in conspiracies. This weekend, Biden was revealed to have aggressive prostate cancer that has metastasized to his bones. We can all feel empathy for anyone suffering such a grim diagnosis, but the need for accountability is not about Joe Biden. Former vice president Kamala Harris appears to be planning a run for California governor. Former cabinet member Pete Buttigieg is thought to be preparing a run for president. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries could be speaker of the House in a little under two years. White House staffers are fanning out into government, academia, the news media and business where many will hold positions of trust. What they did — hide the fact that the man who was president was not up to the job for months or years — when they had a constitutional duty to do something about it, is every bit as awful as the conspiracy that led to Donald Trump's attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021. Both events featured blizzards of lies and behind the scenes conspiracies. One tried to put a man who shouldn't have been president in office while the other tried to keep a man in office who could no longer do the job. Both conspiracies put partisan political interests over the American people's interest in having a real president. We deserve better.
