Media’s Coverage of Crises Under Biden Would Look A Lot Different If Trump Were In Office

The first four months of the Biden administration certainly have not been uneventful, but the coverage from the liberal media has been markedly different than under President Donald Trump.

On a host of issues, the coverage from left-leaning news outlets has kept President Joe Biden out of the story, while during the Trump administration, pretty much everything was about Orange Man Bad. To be fair, the former president made a lot of things about himself, but if the recent gas shortage happened under Trump (or any Republican president), how many news outlets would be blaming him and demanding a response? So far, there has been almost no pressure on the Biden administration to do something about the various issues erupting under his watch.

It was headline news when The Washington Post claimed the U.S. electricity grid was hacked through a utility in Vermont. It turned out that the real story was far more mundane: An employee’s laptop had some malware on it, but that laptop wasn’t connected to the electric grid and the malware had nothing to do with some Russian plot to hack America’s energy systems. Yet when the largest pipeline in the southeast U.S. gets its business computers hacked by a criminal gang, Israel and Hamas are seconds away from war, inflation jumps, and our Southern Border is being overrun by illegal immigrants, the main story from major news outlets is that Republicans ousted Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) from leadership.

To be clear, nothing Biden did or did not do caused the Colonial Pipeline hack. The affected computers weren’t even connected to the pipeline, but Colonial shut it down anyway as a precaution. People then panicked about a gas shortage, so they rushed to fill up their tanks and whatever else they could find to contain fuel. This caused gas stations to run out, leading to long lines and higher prices. Had everyone remained calm and considered that the pipeline would probably be brought back online soon, there wouldn’t have been an issue. But as such, we had a short-lived crisis.

Had that happened under Trump, he would have been blamed, constantly questioned about how it was his fault or how he needed to fix it, demanding he reassure the American people, etc. But Biden — as we can expect will be the case for the entirety of his presidency — gets a pass from the sycophantic media.

Eight months ago, Trump achieved historic deals between several Arab nations and Israel. It was a start, and it signaled the beginning of potential change in the region. More work was obviously needed, but the Biden administration’s Middle East policy has been an abrupt change – abandoning Israel, trying to cozy up to Iran, while disparaging countries like Saudi Arabia, which is far from perfect but is at least willing to work with us (and not a threat to nuke the planet). Now, the media reports on rocket fire into Israel every few years, but had the current situation happened under Trump, there would have been a lot more media pressure and blame. As it stands now, Trump is still getting blamed for the conflict even though he is out of office.

Next, we’re seeing inflation at levels not seen since the Great Recession, but yet again, coverage is steered away from Biden and his administration in a way it wouldn’t be if Trump were president. Trump’s tax cuts would be blamed, as would his spending and, of course, his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, Biden’s rampant spending is left out of the discussion, as is his suggested policies of massive tax hikes. Further, the disastrous April jobs report has already been lost to memory. Again, if Trump were president, this would all still be front page, top-of-the-hour news, with “experts” (code for former Obama officials) on news outlets round the clock to explain how this is all Trump’s fault and how President Barack Obama supposedly did everything right.

Finally, we have the ongoing Border Crisis, which the Biden administration wants to call a “challenge.” As NewsBusters reported on Wednesday, networks are “burying” the staggering numbers behind the Border Crisis. In April, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, there were 178,622 apprehensions at the Southwest border region, with 17,171 unaccompanied children intercepted. The number of migrant children at border facilities (what the media called “kids in cages” under Trump) has doubled in the past two months. But while the situation on the border is getting worse, the media’s coverage of it has dropped 61%. Further, NewsBusters noted, Biden and his policies “were completely shielded from blame in a majority (48) of the 88 stories aired during these two months.”

If Trump were still president, we’d be subjected to round-the-clock coverage blaming him for each of these issues, with daily op-eds in major publications doing the same and suggesting someone from the administration be fired. The coverage would look less like news and more like tabloid gossip, with every response parsed to death and all intent deemed negative. As it stands, that kind of media coverage is reserved for Republican leadership battles.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member.

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases