ABC and CBS were in full celebration Saturday night over the thousands of people partying in the streets of major cities following news projections that President Trump would lose reelection, so things went into overdrive after hearing speeches from both Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA).
Between the two networks, liberal journalists marveled at how Biden’s speech illustrated “a man fortified by victory,” “ranged” in rhetoric, a “tone” that promised to end “systemic racism,” and showed a Joe Biden like they’ve “never seen during the campaign” allowing Americans “to relish in the possibility” for the future.
CBS This Morning co-host, Obama/Biden donor, and Obama family friend Gayle King didn’t hide her enthusiasm, openly stating how much she “already like[s] the tone [Biden’s] setting,” led by his promise that said “he wants to root out systemic racism.”
“Do you know how long people have been waiting for someone in that position to say that, to acknowledge, a.) that it exists, and then to acknowledge we want to do something about it. That's very powerful,” she added.
Throughout CBS’s post-rally coverage, King gushed how she was “excited” to see Biden’s coronavirus policies, that “Biden’s dog Major will be the first shelter pup to live in the White House,” and that he would “reunit[e] the 545” illegal immigrant “children separated from their parents” because of “disgraceful” behavior by the Trump administration that made her feel “embarrassed and ashamed.”
Here was even more partisan cheerleading from King (click “expand”):
I mean, you know, when you talk about, you know, filling your cabinet with people that look like America, that's what that stage looks like right now. Look at the range of color, the range of age, male, female — it really is a beautiful sight to see them all there together[.]
(….)
It's interesting, we're sitting here at Times Square, you can hear the roar of the crowd as we’re sitting in the building. You can hear the applause, the car horns have gotten louder now that it's over. I mean, you feel it's a big celebration right outside of our walls. I liked, too, that he mentioned again he “will work just as hard for those who didn't work for me. I will work just as hard for you." Again, he keeps extending that branch to say I'm here for you and I want to work with you. I think that's a very important message to send. And you can't say it enough. You can't say it enough. Because we are deeply divided as we sit here tonight as a nation.
(….)
[T]he other thing that stood out to me that he said, on day one, is going to work on reuniting the 545 children separated from their parents. I mean, every time I think about that, I am embarrassed and ashamed about that. Can you imagine if that had happened to any American child that you were separated — even though — listen, some people say, “Well, they shouldn't have come here illegally." I hear all of that., but there’s — there had to be a better way to handle that than separate those kids and have no way of keeping track to reunite them with their parents. I think that's disgraceful.
(….)
I still say, John, he mentioned systemic racism on his — on his opening address to the nation, when so many people don't want to even acknowledge that it exists. They don't even see it as an issue or a problem. He put it out there.
And without mentioning her personal ties, she made sure to plug Barack Obama’s upcoming new book, saying she’s “looking forward to it.”
60 Minutes correspondent John Dickerson remarked that “[t]he speech really ranged” and reminded Americans of “what speech-making sounds like, and President Trump just hasn't spoken like this, hasn't chosen to, and this was a speech that seeks to use the words in the moment to bring the nation together and move it along.”
And on the coronavirus, Dickerson remarked that he will be “interested to see how much he and/or his task force…basically take[s] the place of the silence that has existed from the current administration.”
Before King doubled down on stopping “systemic racism,” Dickerson lamented “one of” Biden’s “challenges…under a changing country are those made nervous by change,” which should be read as a gripe about those pesky non-Biden voters.
In an amusing moment, political correspondent Ed O’Keefe remarked that “[w]e saw Biden's son Hunter who we have not seen in public at all during the course of the campaign who’s there” at the victory party and that Joe Biden “has now a total of seven grandchildren,” including “another child that was born to another woman with Hunter.”
CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell also had plenty to say, fawning over how “his task” as president will be continuing to “love with abandon, those who disagree with him vehemently, and the direction he wants to take the country and feel stuck in their ways about — about what they believe and the distrust that has really come to embody our politics.”
Returning from a break, O’Donnell said Biden’s insistence that “this grim era of demonization” has started to end was “[r]eally a remarkable way to encapsulate a change that he is trying to usher in.”
ABC was just as deranged. Before the speech, chief anchor and former Clinton flack George Stephanopoulos was enthused at how “fitting” “it was” for Biden that, just hours earlier, the winner of the Breeder’s Cup was named Authentic
He later added that there’s a chance for “all the exhaustion Americans have felt” to “go away” and that, because of the personnel and policies of a Biden administration, people “don’t have to pay attention to everything that’s going on…in Washington.”
Naturally, chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz agreed, hoping that “the next few years won’t be quite as exhausting.”
Stephanopoulos reminded us of his roots after Biden spoke, beaming about Biden seeming “fortified by victory” and coming off as “[t]he most forceful he's been throughout this campaign after receiving the most votes ever of any presidential candidate.”
Here was more from Stephanopoulos and his cast, including senior congressional correspondent Mary Bruce’s proclamations about Biden speaking like never before in the campaign (click “expand”):
STEPHANOPOULOS: [B]oiled down his message to three words, he did it, time to heal. That was his message to a nation in the grip of a pandemic. Jill Biden, Dr. Jill Biden now joining him out on the stage. That was his message to the millions of Americans out of work. That was his message in a time of racial tension, in a time when raw politics is seeping into too many corners of our lives. He says it’s time to heal. He promised first and foremost to be a President who will not divide, but will unify, talking now of higher love. You still saw the old school politician in him. He couldn’t help himself. He called out the two senators from Delaware. That's a man who has been running for office since the age of 27, as the rest of his family comes out to celebrate, as well. His son Hunter, the target of so many, gets a hug from his dad. Joe Biden never wavered in that love, no matter what was thrown at his son. Kamala Harris's family is out there, as well. Mary Bruce, you were out there the whole campaign. We saw a man energized tonight.
BRUCE: It was a Joe Biden like I have never seen during this campaign and George, when you take a step back, this has been such a hard-fought year and a half, a campaign completely upended by a pandemic. It is likely going to be a very hard-fought transition and a long road ahead, but tonight was a moment for so many here, that sense of a collective exhale and a moment really to relish in the possibility. That's what seemed reflected so much in the remarks here tonight. That sense of hope that the country can maybe come together, that the country can heal going forward and that they can, perhaps, accomplish all of these big things they are setting out to do. [LAUGHS] Look, they know this is going to be very difficult, but tonight is a moment to pause, to take it all in, as you see them doing now on the stage and to think about the possibility and the opportunity ahead.
(….)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Linsey Davis, resplendent in white Kamala Harris, celebrated so many firsts. Daughter of an immigrant, first woman, first black vice president.
LINSEY DAVIS: And when you talk about the first, you know, there are actually t-shirts that the Biden campaign sold that said “first but not last.” That's something she shared tonight, saying “while I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last.” She has said in the past her mother, raising what she called two black daughters, although her mother was from India, that she had told them, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you're not the last. You know, quite often in politics, it can be perceived as the more things change, the more they stay the same, but for at least tonight, it felt that there was a spirit of inspiration, diversity, certainly, as we look at the group that's assembled on the stage there. Representation. And again, Kamala in her suffragette white, but her brown skin. I can't emphasize enough, is so important for young girls, particularly of color, to be able to see someone who looks like them in a role that they may aspire for. Both the President-Elect and vice President-Elect talked about opportunity. Both talked about black voters coming through and standing up for them and both talked about healing.
To reiterate from a previous post, NBC only interjected with special coverage as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris walked out. After Biden finished, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt provided a very brief recap without pontifications and then returned viewers to the Clemson-Notre Dame football game.
ABC did not have ads during its hour-long programming, but CBS’s two-hour Biden pep rally was made possible by advertisers such as Allegra, Geico, and Gold Bond. Follow the links to the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
