Liberal journalists rejoice over Biden performance at SOTU, claim it puts age questions to rest
Liberal-leaning journalists and media personalities gave President Biden's State of the Union speech high praise, with some claiming that it made his detractors look foolish for voicing concerns over his age.
Former CNN journalist John Harwood, known as one of the most sycophantic Biden White House boosters in the media, mocked the president's critics for saying they were worried about his vitality.
"[T]hose Dems complaining that Biden lacks vigor and fight getting splash of cold water in the face right now," he wrote, later adding that the "people yapping for so long about Biden not being up to the job look pretty dumb this morning."
"My fellow Americans the issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are it’s how old our ideas are? Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are among the oldest of ideas," CNN analyst Juliette Kayyem wrote, quoting from Biden's speech. "It would seem Biden has landed on a perfect framing for the age issue."
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"You know Biden knocked Republicans off their ageist narrative by the Republican reactions," journalist Bill Scher wrote, quoting from former President Trump and other conservatives.
Left-wing New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote, "A thought: the whole Biden-is-too-old thing was kind of a bubble, in the sense that people were buying it mainly because other people were buying it. Did Biden just burst that bubble?"
On ABC's "The View," Joy Behar said he was "fabulous" and Sunny Hostin said Biden's quip about his own age was wise. Ana Navarro said he was "impassioned" and "Scranton Joe showed up and fought," adding she chanted "Four more years" in her hotel room.
Politico's Playbook summed up the reaction to Biden's speech as "generally glowing," adding that "it's hard to imagine how the SOTU could've gone much better for Biden." The outlet also shared that the expectations for Biden's speech were extremely low.
"The flip side of the age attacks on Biden was apparent yesterday: So long as Biden didn’t come out and look like a dithering old man incapable of engaging with a topic or even finishing a sentence, he’d defy the lower-than-Death Valley expectations that had been set for him," Politico wrote.
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On the eve of Biden's speech, Democrats, many of whom spoke anonymously, told Axios that they were "nervous" about Biden's State of the Union.
"We are all nervous," one House Democrat told Axios, citing concerns about the 81-year-old's "ability to speak without blowing things."
At one point, Biden appeared to mispronounce the name of the slain Georgia student Laken Riley, who was allegedly murdered by a Venezuelan illegal immigrant.
"Lincoln — Lincoln Riley," Biden appeared to say, bungling her name. "An innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. That's right, but how many of the thousands of people being killed by legals — to her parents?"
Republican lawmakers were not totally convinced that Biden's speech defeated any concerns over his age, however.
"A lot of the time it was hard to understand what he was saying," said House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good, R-Va. "He was kind of mumbling and slurring."
"We couldn't understand him. He was so mad," agreed Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan. "The volume was up and down."
In the notably political address, Biden repeatedly assailed "my predecessor" without explicitly naming former President Trump. He also scolded the Supreme Court justices in attendance over the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Fox News' Julia Johnson, Elizabeth Elkind and Charles Creitz contributed to this report.