. @chucktodd went OFF on the “virtue signaling” of reporters who play into the Trump narrative of a cover-up of Biden’s health by the media pic.twitter.com/VUCYsz4K1r — Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) April 28, 2025 Chuck Todd scoffed at the premise that the media failed to adequately cover the decline of former President Joe Biden ahead of the 2024 election. Speaking with Chris Cillizza on his Substack channel Monday, Todd — the former moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press — rejected the idea that media outlets dropped the ball and did not question whether Biden’s cognitive function was sufficient to run the country for another four years.
“This is not a media failure,” Todd said. “This was a failure of the Democratic party. And the virtue signaling that some people have done to try to say the media missed this story, they didn’t miss this story!
David Ignatius wrote ‘I just refuse to accept this stupid premise! Because it’s a manufactured Right-wing premise in order to stain the media.” Speaking on Saturday night at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Axios’s Alex Thompson — the co-author of a forthcoming book on the former president’s decline — called out the press for not challenging the White House narrative that Biden was up to the job. “President Biden’s decline and its coverup by the people around him is a reminder that every White House, regardless of party, is capable of deception,” Thompson said.
“But being truth tellers also means telling the truth about ourselves. We, myself included, missed a lot of this story.” Todd, for one, doesn’t buy it. “The media’s got plenty of things to attack them for,” Todd said.
“And there are CNN and MSNBC pundits that absolutely carried water for Joe Biden. But they’re not journalists! They’re former strategists that carried water for Joe Biden.” He added, “People like me were promoting Dean Phillips’s campaign because he was running a campaign that made a lot of sense.” In the end, Todd pointed the finger squarely at Democratic party elites.
This isn’t WMDs — where the White House worked with the mainstream media to manufacture a story that did not exist. That was a press failure! Massive press failure!
This was not that failure. This is an attempt by some to virtue signal. And it’s the horrible sort of pitting different news organizations against each other.
When ultimately, the people at fault are; Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Jill Biden, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, every [Democratic] member of Congress.” Watch above, via Substack/Chris Cillizza.
