Tuesday’s Dana Bash-Joe Biden interview was embarrassing and pathetic to begin with for CNN, but things got even dumber right after it first aired. On The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer spent over six minutes boasting of how not only was it an “excellent interview” with Biden’s “very strong words” for President Trump, but how socially distanced the interview was.
And for Bash, she continued to marvel at Biden’s answers, refusing to both offer criticism and note how his rhetoric has matched that of CNN and the media writ large.
Immediately, Blitzer was in awe (click “expand”):
BLITZER: Dana, excellent, excellent interview. Very important and I was taking notes. I saw at the end he was getting obviously, understandably, emotional when he was answering your last question [about his late son Beau]. But earlier, and I'm looking at my notes, he said the President of the United States is a fool, an absolute fool to talk that way about his wearing --- about the former vice president wearing a mask yesterday. He said, this macho stuff from the President, it's costing people's lives and then he said, presidents are supposed to lead, not engage in folly and be falsely masculine and then he said, I'm never going to stoop to where he is. Very strong words. Take us a little bit behind the scenes. What was it like up there in Wilmington, Delaware?
BASH: Very strong. Well, first of all, it was a very small footprint that we had. It was outside of his home. You can see there, we were very careful, there were very few of us from CNN and even fewer of the vice president's aides….[W]e've covered him for a long time, he is a very tactile person, he likes to be out and about. I joke with him that he gets a lot of his oxygen from being with other people and he was --- you could tell he was kind of happy to be back out at it, but he also said, and I just want to refer back to the very beginning of the interview, he is going to follow the orders of the governor of his state, as a resident of Delaware, he is going to wait until his governor says that the stay-at-home order is lifted and until then he's not going to even really take -- stick a real toe into more traditional campaigning.
Blitzer next bragged to Bash about how “we were really happy you were there,” that she was “12 feet apart” from Biden, and that Biden would call into question Trump’s mental state.
So much for Facts First. When it’s all Trump hate, all the time, your priorities can be out of whack.
Bash took those compliments and ran with them, illustrating the liberal media’s double standard when it came to the President responding to attacks versus when someone on the left does it. Whereas Trump’s retorts were seen as obscene and unbecoming, Bash gushed that Biden threw multiple “counterpunches” at the administration.
As Fox News Channel host Laura Ingraham would take note of and mock hours later on The Ingraham Angle, Bash and Blitzer repeatedly trumpeted the social distancing measures she and her crew took for the interview as if it were a fashion statement (click “expand”):
BLITZER: So, did you get a sense that we're going to see more of the former vice president out there, outside of Wilmington, Delaware, on the campaign trail, doing various events?
BASH: He wants to. But again, he says he will not until his governor in Delaware says that the stay-at-home order is lifted. I mean, his whole message is leadership, leading by example. That's why, again, we didn't wear masks in the interview so we could hear each other, but we did so very far apart, 12 feet apart, and outside, that's the reason we had the interview outside, but, you know, even before I mentioned the mask, he mentioned the fact that the President doesn't wear a mask. It was not an accident that the former vice president went out on Memorial Day wearing a mask and I should say that before we sat down for the interview, if we even got a little bit closer than 12 feet, we were both wearing masks as was everybody else on the crew and the staff.
BLITZER: Yeah, just totally understandable. The right thing to do.
(….)
BLITZER: I’m glad you went up to Wilmington, Delaware. I know you drove by yourself, in your own car ---
BASH: I did.
BLITZER: --- that's the safe way to do it, obviously. Our crew drove in a separate car. Dana, thank you very much for doing what you did. Thanks for everything you’re doing everyday here on CNN. We're grateful to you. Good work, as usual. Appreciate very much. Our chief political correspondent, Dana Bash.
To see the relevant CNN transcript from May 26, click “expand.”
CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer
May 26, 2020
5:41 p.m. EasternWOLF BLITZER: Dana, excellent, excellent interview. Very important and I was taking notes. I saw at the end he was getting obviously, understandably, emotional when he was answering your last question. But earlier, and I'm looking at my notes, he said the President of the United States is a fool, an absolute fool to talk that way about his wearing --- about the former vice president wearing a mask yesterday. He said, this macho stuff from the President, it's costing people's lives and then he said, presidents are supposed to lead, not engage in folly and be falsely masculine and then he said, I'm never going to stoop to where he is. Very strong words. Take us a little bit behind the scenes. What was it like up there in Wilmington, Delaware?
DANA BASH: Very strong. Well, first of all, it was a very small footprint that we had. It was outside of his home. You can see there, we were very careful, there were very few of us from CNN and even fewer of the vice president's aides. He had the people around him who he needed and that was about it and that's how it's been for the former vice president. I mean, some of the aides who were there today have --- just haven't been there at all, they've been truly social distancing, he's been with his family, as we know, as we've seen from the social media posts and the interviews he's done remotely in his basement. You could tell that --- we know, and he mentioned this, Joe Biden, we've covered him for a long time, he is a very tactile person, he likes to be out and about. I joke with him that he gets a lot of his oxygen from being with other people and he was --- you could tell he was kind of happy to be back out at it, but he also said, and I just want to refer back to the very beginning of the interview, he is going to follow the orders of the governor of his state, as a resident of Delaware, he is going to wait until his governor says that the stay-at-home order is lifted and until then he's not going to even really take -- stick a real toe into more traditional campaigning.
BLITZER: Well, you got there, obviously you were really happy you were there, you were 12 feet apart during the course of the interview. He at one point also said the President seems to be erratic. Just elaborate a little bit on how angry he is at the current president of the United States for what he's said and what he's done, especially in the context of the coronavirus pandemic.
BASH: You can see kind of the push and pull of how he wants to respond as a person and as a competitor versus how he should respond given the message of his campaign, meaning he is running as somebody who was the antidote to the President's behavior, but at the same time, he is somebody who, you know, he takes a punch and he wants to punch back. We saw, I think, more of those counterpunches today, I think I did, in his language, as you said, macho, fool, talking about his emotional stability, when I asked him about the very real criticism that he is getting, campaign oppo from the other side about the fact that he is older and they're suggesting in a very transparent way that he is missing a step and that's how he responded, so I really felt like he was extremely eager to get out there, to get into the arena, because remember, he became the presumptive nominee and then everything shut down, so he hasn't had a chance, a clean shot, if you will, at the President without also having to debate and to battle his fellow Democrats.
BLITZER: So, did you get a sense that we're going to see more of the former vice president out there, outside of Wilmington, Delaware, on the campaign trail, doing various events?
BASH: He wants to. But again, he says he will not until his governor in Delaware says that the stay-at-home order is lifted. I mean, his whole message is leadership, leading by example. That's why, again, we didn't wear masks in the interview so we could hear each other, but we did so very far apart, 12 feet apart, and outside, that's the reason we had the interview outside, but, you know, even before I mentioned the mask, he mentioned the fact that the President doesn't wear a mask. It was not an accident that the former vice president went out on Memorial Day wearing a mask and I should say that before we sat down for the interview, if we even got a little bit closer than 12 feet, we were both wearing masks as was everybody else on the crew and the staff.
BLITZER: Yeah, just totally understandable. The right thing to do.
(….)BLITZER: I’m glad you went up to Wilmington, Delaware. I know you drove by yourself, in your own car ---
BASH: I did.
BLITZER: --- that's the safe way to do it, obviously. Our crew drove in a separate car. Dana, thank you very much for doing what you did. Thanks for everything you’re doing everyday here on CNN. We're grateful to you. Good work, as usual. Appreciate very much. Our chief political correspondent, Dana Bash.
