Amanpour & Co. host Christiane Amanpour examined the possible 2024 Biden-Trump presidential election rematch with New York Times’ London bureau chief Mark Landler, who reveres the left-wing BBC, and Emily Maitlis, a former BBC anchor. Takeaways from their Wednesday appearance on the PBS show were that the media should highlight Biden’s essential competence and Trump’s election denial, while host Amanpour couldn't quite believe that Biden's age was worthy of coverage.
After opening with talk about Israel and Amanpour's claim of being told by Israeli reporters “that the Israeli people are not seeing the extent of the human suffering in Gaza,” they turned to the United States and actually brought up a concern about Joe Biden’s advanced age and lack of vitality as the election approaches. Amanpour was angling to dismiss the matter, but her guests reluctantly conceded it was a genuine concern among voters.
Amanpour: I want to bring it back to the U.S. election. The idea of Biden's age, is that a media construct? Is that a real thing? Is that something that because we have been hammering it every single time, there's a story?
After Maitlis reluctantly admitted Democrats were worried about Biden’s age, Amanpour tried the same tack with Landler of the Times.
Amanpour: I keep trying to figure this out, Mark, because I've also listened to podcasts and other things, which actually show that a lot of this idea is being ramped up on TikTok and stuff. I mean, generations of people who've never seen FDR, I don't know, in a wheelchair or whatever it is, are being told that this is a real problem. So, I'm just -- how do you see it?
Amanpour surely knows the media cooperated with Frankin Delano Roosevelt by not publishing photographs of Roosevelt in his wheelchair (Roosevelt had been stricken by a paralytic disease in his late 30s and as president had to be lifted in and out of cars). And FDR’s inability to walk didn’t affect his mental acuity -- age can.
Landler: Well, look, we live, whether we like it or not, in a visual age, in a television age, in a TikTok age. And so, what Emily says is right. It doesn't much matter if Joe Biden's age impedes his ability to do his job well, which I think it probably doesn't. He's surrounded by terrific advisers. He's forgotten more about American foreign policy than most people ever learned. He brings a huge amount of wisdom. And by all accounts, and talking to my colleagues, I don't have the sense that he is not on his game on making important decisions. And if you look at his record, it actually stands up well to the last few presidents, some of whom were decades younger than him at the time….
Now, where I think we can play a role, as the press, and particularly people who cover President Biden day-to-day, is to write about this intelligently, unscrupulously [sic], and thoughtfully. In other words, if there's evidence that Joe Biden's age actually is a performance issue for him, then we should point that out, right? And there have been a couple of places where he's made gaps. He's had to be cleaned up the next day by aides on some important-enough issues. But by the same token, there's also a lot of evidence that he's conducted the business of the president very competently. So, our job is to do that….
Meanwhile, Maitlis insisted all Trump coverage be filtered through the “election denier” prism. The British journalist offered some unsolicited election coverage advice to American reporters.
Maitlis:….So, I think all the reporting that we do should come actually from that prism, that he is an election denier, that he has managed to convince people of the lies that he's been telling for the last three-and-a-half years, that he's using his 91 indictments as a fundraising tool. And I don't think that any of us can be covering your election, the American elections without actually starting from that place. If that is not a sort of a black cloud across your forehead of everything that you're saying on air, of everything that you're writing and thinking about, then we're not doing our jobs properly.
Which is exactly what they’re doing already, no transatlantic help required.
A transcript is available, click “Expand.”
PBS Amanpour & Co.
1/25/23
1:59:50 p.m. (ET)
AMANPOUR: I want to bring it back to the U.S. election. The idea of Biden's age, is that a media construct? Is that a real thing? Is that something that because we have been hammering it every single time, there's a story?
MAITLIS: Yes, I was in Georgia just before Christmas, and we were talking to some young guys who were college educated, OK? They had jobs. One was a pilot. And they were all talking about their support for Donald Trump. And the word they used was, he's a strong leader. If you're going to go to war, you want a strong man behind you. And it was really interesting, because if you look at how Trump has handled the campaigning, you know, the campaign stump speeches so far, what he does is he carries on talking about Biden's weakness, or sort of frivolity and his own strength.
Now, the idea that there's only four years or so between these two guys, right, is something that we should all, again, keep in the front of our minds.
Biden is always softly spoken. I mean, I do think he has a slight problem with his voice. He doesn't actually project enough because of the stuff that he sort of mumbles a lot. There's quite a lot of words that are swallowed and Trump performs, right? He goes out, he's bombastic, he does this, but that is the message that he wants to carry. I mean, quite frankly, if the Republicans were really on to something, they would put Nikki Haley in that position. Because that is the way you contrast, you know, Biden's age and her age. You know, her sort of nimbleness and his, because Donald Trump is not a young man, whichever way you look at it. Has it been overplayed by the media? I started thinking that at the beginning, but I've talked to a lot of Democrats around Biden who are very worried, whether it's about his age or whether it's about the --
AMANPOUR: They're worried, for sure.
MAITLIS: -- perception of his age, they are worried.
AMANPOUR: I mean, I keep trying to figure this out, Mark, because I've also listened to podcasts and other things, which actually show that a lot of this idea is being ramped up on TikTok and stuff. I mean, generations of people who've never seen FDR, I don't know, in a wheelchair or whatever it is, are being told that this is a real problem. So, I'm just -- how do you see it?
LANDLER: Well, look, we live, whether we like it or not, in a visual age, in a television age, in a TikTok age. And so, what Emily says is right. It doesn't much matter if Joe Biden's age impedes his ability to do his job well, which I think it probably doesn't. He's surrounded by terrific advisers.
He's forgotten more about American foreign policy than most people ever learned. He brings a huge amount of wisdom. And by all accounts, and talking to my colleagues, I don't have the sense that he is not on his game on making important decisions. And if you look at his record, it actually stands up well to the last few presidents, some of whom were decades younger than him at the time.
None of that actually matters as a political question, because if people think, because he's old, he's weak, and Donald Trump is stronger, then that's the ballgame. So, I sort of feel like that debate -- you can have that debate, but it doesn't matter what I think, or what people think about his competence, it matters what the voters think.
So, if they think he's too old -- now, where I think we can play a role, as the press, and particularly people who cover President Biden day-to-day is to write about this intelligently, unscrupulously and thoughtfully. In other words, if there's evidence that Joe Biden's age actually is a performance issue for him, then we should point that out, right?
And there have been a couple of places where he's made gaps. He's had to be cleaned up the next day by aides on some important enough issues. But by the same token, there's also a lot of evidence that he's conducted the business of the president very competently. So, our job is to do that. There are some things that are simply going to be up to the voters to decide and --
MAITLIS: Yes, I'd also say if you look at who Trump idolizes, it's the strong men of Europe, it's Erdogan in Turkey, it's Orban in Hungary, it's Putin in Russia. And when he says strong man, or when he thinks of these strong men, it's not a physical thing, it's about authoritarianism, right?
AMANPOUR: And I wonder whether the voters who say they want a strong man know that, because this is about democracy and authoritarianism.
MAITLIS: But it becomes very easy to ally two things, doesn't it? To be talking about authoritarianism, and then to sort of point to a man who's slightly stooped and go, you won't get strength from him.
The number here that people are actually looking at, that is leaving people jaw dropped is the 66 percent of Iowan voters who believe Donald Trump's lie, that they have been convinced that Donald Trump is the right president of this time and that his questioning of the legitimacy of Joe Biden is something that he's taken to Iowa. So, I think all the reporting that we do should come actually from that prism, that he is an election denier, that he has managed to convince people of the lies that he's been telling for the last three and a half years, that he's using his 91 indictments as a fundraising tool.
And I don't think that any of us can be covering your election, the American elections without actually starting from that place. If that is not a sort of a black cloud across your thread of everything that you're saying on air, of everything that you're writing and thinking about, then we're not doing our jobs properly.
