TV journalists are enthusiastically promoting the six trillion-dollar spending package that President Biden proposed last night in his address to Congress. Rather than criticizing the dangerously high level of proposed new spending, talking heads on both cable and broadcast networks marveled at the “bold” and “ambitious” proposal, with some excitedly comparing Biden to former Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.
During Wednesday night’s post-speech analysis on CBS, White House correspondent Nancy Cordes remarked that Biden’s “big, bold, ambitious plans” were just what Americans wanted: “[a] lot of the things that are in those spending packages are incredibly popular — when you’re talking about universal pre-K, and lowering the cost of child care, and free community college.”
The following morning on ABC’s Good Morning America, chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce gushed: “This certainly was a joint address like we have never seen before.” She added that Biden was “seizing this moment to outline his sweeping, ambitious agenda.”
Jake Tapper, host of CNN’s The Lead, described Biden’s massive spending proposal as “perhaps the most ambitious, progressive agenda since LBJ, or even Franklin Roosevelt.” Over on MSNBC, veteran host Brian Williams remarked with an excited grin: “It is either Johnsonian or Rooseveltian.”
On Thursday’s CBS This Morning, co-anchor Anthony Mason actually pressured his guest, Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida, to embrace the proposal: “It’s a very popular plan according to our poll. Fifty-eight percent of Americans support it. Given that level of support in those polls, can’t you try to cut a deal here?”
This saccharine coverage is to be expected during a Democratic presidency. After all, the fastest way to the media's heart has always been through someone else's wallet.
