CBS News chief legal correspondent Jean Crawford acknowledged Sunday that the media should have been covering President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline, but not for the reason you might think.
Instead of taking a principled stance on the journalistic ethics of media outlets that ignore what she called Joe Biden’s “clear cognitive decline,” Crawford lamented that her and the media’s lack of scrutiny had cost Democrats the opportunity to field a better candidate.
If the media had held Biden’s feet to the fire, it could have led to an open Democratic primary, Crawford said.
“It could have changed the entire scope of the election,” she said during CBS’s “Face the Nation” broadcast on Sunday.
Biden’s flip-flopping in the now-infamous 2024 debate led to his downfall and the coronation of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee.
His stuttering and inability to produce clear sentences during the debate led Trump at one point to say: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence, and I don’t think he knows what he said either.”
The White House blamed Biden’s poor performance on a cold, but his debate performance prompted several lawmakers, including members of his own Democratic Party, to call on him to withdraw from the race. (RELATED: ‘I don’t like it’: Sunny Hostin says Biden not being transparent about his age, mental state)
Despite the initial wave of defiance, Biden withdrew less than a month after the debate.
“We should have questioned more forcefully whether he is qualified to run for office for another four years,” Crawford said Sunday.
She revealed those sentiments a day after a report emerged that Biden and members of his staff regretted his withdrawal, according to people familiar with their discussions.
Crawford also pointed to a recent Wall Street Journal report that Biden aides have essentially been running his office for most of his presidency.
She described Biden’s alleged assertion that he believed he could have beaten Trump, which the Washington Post described I mentioned “Imaginary” Saturday.
Crawford wasn’t the only media voice to regret covering Biden in the past. Former CNN anchor Chris Cillizza apologized for not covering Biden with more scrutiny in a recent YouTube video.
Other media stars, including former MSNBC anchor Mehdi Hassan and radio talk show host Brian Lehrer, expressed their regret for Semafor, who was profiled by the channel in a newscast on Sunday.