BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Here’s Proof The Media Covers Donald Trump And Joe Biden Very Differently

Following
This article is more than 3 years old.

Try and picture this scene in your mind. Four years ago, then-businessman Donald Trump, the walking meme machine regarded as a longshot candidate for the White House but who nevertheless crushed all of his Republican rivals, steps up to a podium to deliver remarks to a group of American soldiers. Rows of soldiers stand behind him as he speaks, providing a patriotic, made-for-TV visual. As for the candidate himself, he rambles, he jokes, out comes one sound bite after another, he zings the opposition — all of it, in other words, vintage Trump

At one point during his speech, Candidate Trump decides to prod his audience for round of applause that he feels a particular applause line didn’t garner the way he’d hoped it would. Only, the way Trump asks for that applause is by demanding that the assembled soldiers “Clap for that, you stupid bastards!” before going on to lament that this crowd must be pretty “dull” to have to be told to applaud for the candidate.

Now picture, if you will, the media furor that would have ensued if that were to have taken place, if Trump would have addressed a group of soldiers so crudely — and, to put a cherry on top, if the whole thing would have been captured on video. Hard to refute, isn’t it, when you’ve got actual footage of the candidate’s actual words, calling our fine men and women in uniform “stupid bastards.” Democratic admakers would have salivated at the prospect of slotting that video into ads and TV spots for then-candidate Hillary Clinton. Robocallers, campaign surrogates, TV talking heads — everyone would have had a field day, replaying the video over and over again.

Here’s the thing: All of the above did actually happen back in 2016, albeit with one crucial exception.

The person delivering the remarks was not Donald Trump.

It was Joe Biden.

As recently as Sunday, when President Trump gave a somewhat impromptu news conference just minutes after The New York Times NYT published the bombshell results of its investigation into Trump’s tax returns — showing that the president, among other things, appeared to have paid no federal income tax for at least a decade — Trump returned to one of his oft-used lines of attack: That the media treats him unfairly, and the only stories that outlets like the Times publish on him are negative ones.

Let’s take a closer look at that claim. 

First of all, many of you probably weren’t even aware that this video existed. Apart from a few mainstream outlets like The Daily Beast that reported on it when it surfaced in recent days, it hasn’t attracted much media attention at all.

That’s partly because the Biden campaign on Friday acknowledged the video’s authenticity and defended Biden’s remarks by saying he was just having a little fun.

“Vice President Biden was jokingly encouraging the audience to clap for an airwoman on the stage, and a number of service members can be seen laughing and smiling at the comment,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates told The Daily Beast. “Seconds before, he praised them for 'the incredible sacrifices (they) make for our country.

“He thanked them for their patriotism and courage throughout, and closed his remarks by saying, 'You’re the finest generation of warriors the world has ever, ever known' — receiving an enthusiastic ovation.”

Okay, fine. It was a joke. But is calling soldiers “stupid bastards” to their face an appropriate joke for a man who wants to be the leader of the free world? Of course not. If we’re going to hold President Trump to a certain standard of decorum, and appropriately excoriate him when he falls short, the same standard needs to apply to his rival, as well.

Can you imagine great presidents from history making comments like this? “The only thing we have to fear is ... fear itself, you stupid bastards!”

For the record, the Biden campaign’s defense of the comments sounds entirely plausible and there’s no reason to discount it. The fact that it received no news coverage — even that is almost forgivable, because everyone has long regarded Biden as a jokey, grandfatherly figure who clearly loves the military (his own son served in Iraq) who’s long been a bit of a gaffe factory.

The fact of the matter, however, is that if the shoe had been on the other fit — if Trump was the one who’d made these comments — it would have fueled another cycle of bad press for the president. Clearly, a different standard of coverage is being applied to Trump that Biden is not being subjected to. Don’t believe that’s true? Clearly, you’ve forgotten the media firestorm that surrounded President Trump earlier this month upon publication of a bombshell article in The Atlantic. In it, Trump was accused of making snide and inappropriate comments about members of the military — only, in that one, there was no video. And the sources were all anonymous.

Follow me on Twitter