CNN tries to fix Biden’s gaffe, highlights foreign leaders’ reaction

As if Thursday night’s disastrous first presidential debate wasn’t enough evidence of President Joe Biden’s unfitness for a second term, CNN continued to downplay the impact his re-election would have on the world stage. During the first hour of Tuesday’s debate, This morningModerator Kasie Hunt and CNN International anchor Max Foster dismissed Biden’s performance in the debate by delaying responses from international leaders and diplomats.

Hunt opened the segment by playing a clip of one of Biden’s most glaring missteps of the evening, in which he unintelligibly mumbled a response before declaring, “We finally beat Medicare.” In his words, “moments like this have Secretary of State Antony Blinken scrambling to try to assuage global concerns about President Biden’s fitness for office.”

In the video released by Hunt, Blinken defended the president, saying that “trust in American leadership has increased dramatically over the last three and a half years” because of Biden’s seemingly brilliant policies. Foster agreed that the debate was simply “overwhelmed by all the personality.”

He also said the seriousness of the debate “depends on what political leaning you adhere to,” saying those in the center would be more favorable to Biden.

Yet, as everyone saw immediately after the debate, leaders from across the political spectrum, including within the Democratic Party, expressed serious concerns about his performance, with many even withdrawing their support.

Hunt cited a the wall street journal The article, titled “The world watched Biden deteriorate. Democrats ignored warnings,” highlighted the growing unease among European officials. But she contrasted the article with a statement from a diplomat to CNN that suggested the problem was not so dire.

“It was obvious that he was old. We are not worried about his policies. If you have a president who works three hours a day with a good team and makes good decisions, that’s good,” the diplomat said.

This prompted Hunt to raise the image issue because “there is a reality that the show of force by the United States has an impact on how American and European adversaries operate on the world stage.” Foster responded with a strangely ambiguous answer:

It depends on whether or not you want America to be the world statesman. There are countries like France, the United Kingdom, Germany, many European allies who see the great advantage of having the American president as the real leader of democracy in the world. If you don’t want that, then you can look to President Biden.

In any case, it didn’t make much difference to Foster because “in terms of politics” the only thing that mattered was that the president was surrounded by “strong people that foreign leaders deal with. And they’ve always been pretty strong.”

The transcript is below. Click “expand” to read:

CNN This morning

07/02/2024

05:13:21 AM EST

(Cut to video)

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: (unintelligible) Look, we finally beat Medicare.

(Back to live)

KASIE HUNT: In times like these, Secretary of State Antony Blinken tries to allay global concerns about President Biden’s fitness for office at the Brookings Institution here in Washington. Blinken told the audience that 90 minutes on television doesn’t define a presidency and that America’s standing in the world has skyrocketed with Biden at the helm.

(Cut to video)

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: Trust in American leadership has increased dramatically over the last three and a half years. This doesn’t happen by accident. This is the result of choices, of policies that we’re pursuing, of commitment. And they see President Biden as a leader in all of these areas.

(Back to live)

HUNT: All right, let’s turn it over to Max Foster of CNN. He’s live for us in London. Max, good morning to you. It’s always a pleasure to see you. Tell us about the impact of this debate between Western allies in your region.

MAX FOSTER: We’re obviously not voting in this election, but we’re focusing a lot more on policy. I think what’s been lost a little bit here is the policy, because it’s been so overwhelmed by all the personality here. The surprise was that Biden’s people were focusing on him rather than Trump. We’re used to Trump holding the stage the way he does. Biden really confused people about exactly where he was going. And I think if you look at all the foreign policy elements of what Trump was saying, people saw a lot of inaccuracies and they were quite surprised that Biden didn’t call him out on those elements.

So I think it depends of course on your political orientation. If you’re in the center, you have more sympathy for President Biden. I would probably say that if you move to the right, which is increasingly happening here in Europe, then you look at Trump and you probably supported his role in this debate. So I think it was difficult for foreign leaders because they basically had to accept who was going to come out of this situation, you know, trying to figure out what policy options would work best for their country. But it wasn’t clear in the debate because it was so much about personality.

HUNT: So, Max, the the wall street journal The article, titled “The World Watched Biden Deteriorate. Democrats Ignored Warnings,” read: “European officials had already privately expressed concerns about Biden’s focus and stamina ahead of Thursday’s debate, with some senior diplomats saying they had seen a noticeable deterioration in the president’s abilities in meetings since last summer. There were real doubts about Biden’s ability to successfully manage a second term.”

Then there was this European diplomat who spoke to CNN and said, quote: “It was obvious that he was old. We are not worried about his policies. If you have a president who works three hours a day with a good team and makes good decisions, that’s great.”

So that’s kind of what you were talking about. I think my question is a little bit about the visual aspect – and I know this is something you think about a lot – because one of the main arguments that Donald Trump makes against President Biden is that he’s weak on the world stage. And there’s the fact that the show of force by the United States has an impact on how American and European adversaries act on the world stage. What impact do you think that has?

FOSTER: Well, it depends on whether or not you want America to be the world statesman. There are countries like France, the United Kingdom, Germany, many European allies that see the great advantage of having the American president as the real leader of democracy in the world. world.

If you don’t want that, then, you know, you look to President Biden. You probably think you’re in a better position now. You want – if you know, you know, the American president to be your world leader, of course, you want his faculties to be at their service. They have immense military power and immense economic power, but you know, I think that comment that you saw in the CNN article about the fact that in terms of policy, there are a lot of very strong people around the president that foreign leaders deal with. And they’ve always been pretty strong.

It’s just a matter of seeing a situation where Donald Trump seems stronger than Biden, which makes him a more likely candidate to become the world leader. Can you work with him? I think there are countries – you know, I was in France yesterday and if the far right does well next weekend as we hope they do, they would probably prefer to see a Donald Trump type of character leading the world, you know, you know, you can focus more on your domestic economy and you don’t focus as much on the global economy.

So it just depends on where That’s where you come from and it’s moving further here. So in the past, it seemed like Europe wanted Biden and the centrists, as they saw it. That’s not so much the case now, so they’re really looking at what kind of world leader they want.

HUNT: Yeah, I think we’re going to end up looking back at it, NATO – I guess it was the G7 where we looked at all these leaders and you and I talked about it and we said, “Well, this is a group that seems to be leaving the stage.” And what it might look like when we talk about it next year might be very different. Max Foster for us. Max, I’m very grateful to have you here. Thank you very much.

(…)