On Sunday's MediaBuzz on Fox News, host Howard Kurtz discussed President Biden's Jackie gaffe with Brian Kilmeade and Democrat strategist Laura Fink. Kurtz underlined CNN and MSNBC completely ignored the gaffe, but Fink claimed ABC, CBS, and NBC all covered it. That is false.
A Nexis search shows ABC had nothing. CBS offered a brief on their 4 am show, but not on their regular morning and evening shows. NBC didn't mention it until Sunday's Meet the Press, where Chuck Todd dismissed it with former Biden White House aide Symone Sanders-Townsend. Here's how it unfolded:
KURTZ: Let me jump in here. By the way, MSNBC completely ignored it. CNN completely ignored it on the air. Did run a couple of online articles. And I think, Laura, what made this worse was when Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary, said, well, this was just top of mind for him and that's why he did it. As opposed to, hey, he forgot and apologize if that's what happened. Because no one's buying the press secretary's explanation.
FINK: Well, it wasn't her best day behind the podium. And I think everybody has a tough day and she --
KURTZ: Diplomatically played.
FINK: -- has. But I think that it should -- you should handle it directly. And frankly, you know, Joe Biden makes gaffes. He's made gaffes since he was a very young man.
KURTZ: Yes.
FINK: And this is one of those gaffes. I think at the context in which he said it though, acknowledging someone, a congresswoman who was, in fact, deeply critical of him for her work on rural nutrition and access to food in rural areas is something that -- it's also because people admire that about Joe Biden. The fact that he is willing to acknowledge and to do bipartisan things."
Kilmeade broke in, arguing that Biden didn't know whether she was alive or dead, and how could he have meant well in his confusion?
Fink claimed "I actually did see coverage on all the major networks. I saw Karine Jean-Pierre getting grilled in the press room, which is as it should be." That might imply the actual briefing aired on ABC, CBS, and NBC, which isn't true, either.
She added: "I can't turn on the news without having someone opining about Biden's mental state." And: "I really don't think this is not getting covered."
Hold on, Kurtz replied:
KURTZ: No, this is not top of the head thing. We checked and there was no mention of this on MSNBC and there was no mention of this on the air, on CNN. Imagine if it had been Donald Trump doing that shout-out. Now I don't want to turn now --
FINK [smiling]: If you turn on ABC or NBC or CBS because I think it was covered on all three.
KURTZ: I have no information on that, so I'll defer to you.
That's polite. But she was wrong.
This segment was supported in part by Progressive.
