By Kevin Tober
Editor’s note. This is excerpted from a post at Newsbusters.
On Tuesday, Americans received an answer to one of the biggest sources of speculation in American politics over the past few months: will President Joe Biden run for reelection given his advanced age and apparent cognitive decline? The answer was yes. Later that evening, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News surprisingly noted the concerns many voters had regarding Biden’s age and ability to serve as President for another four years. The two evening network newscasts even reported on polling that showed voters did not want him to seek another term.
For his report on CBS Evening News, senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe revealed that “a new CBS News poll shows challenges ahead for Mr. Biden. A large majority describe the country as out of control, and nearly half of Democrats don’t want him to run again.”
“They overwhelmingly cite his age as a reason,” he noted. O’Keefe then spoke to two young voters, both of whom thought Biden was too old:
UNIDENTIFIED FLORIDA VOTER 1: Well, I just don’t think that he’s fit enough still to be president. I feel like he is older, and he is getting older.
UNIDENTIFIED FLORIDA VOTER 2: I think he’s too old. This is a new generation, and I think they are stuck in the old ways.
NBC Nightly News was even harsher on Biden, with White House correspondent Peter Alexander reporting on a recent “NBC News poll [that] shows only 41 percent of Americans approve of the job President Biden is doing. 54 percent disapprove.”
“70 percent of Americans say they don’t want President Biden to run for reelection, including most Democrats. But 60 percent of Americans say they don’t want Mr. Trump to run again either,” Alexander added. …
ABC’s World News Tonight, for their part made no mention of the stiff headwinds Biden faces in his upcoming fight for reelection. Instead, the network newscast spent the entirety of the segment playing stenographer and regurgitating what Biden said during his announcement.