Jon Stewart on CNN’s Biden book: ‘Selling you a book about news they should have told you’
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/may/20/jon-stewart-cnn-biden-book
Jon Stewart on CNN’s Biden book: ‘Selling you a book about news they should have told you’
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/may/20/jon-stewart-cnn-biden-book
40 comments
He’s right. They could have been honest about the fact that we were seeing Biden decline cognitively but instead gaslit people and called it misinformation.
Hope it was worth it.
Why weren’t we told?
Absolutely correct and I have to admit I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but it is right on. Screw CNN.
The media propped up Reagan during his last term while he was suffering from Alzheimer’s.
CNN and MSNBC have turned into spaces to push books and podcasts like a late night talk show. It’s not news, it’s entertainment.
Sounds about right, real life is pretty paid to win. I see tons of advertisements for seminars for rich people about various important subjects they should probably tell everyone but won’t because we’re just peasants.
I kinda feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Wasn’t it covered constantly? All I remember seeing was talks about Bidens mental decline, and will he still run or not. They might not have had the full details, but this isn’t news to anyone. And yet no one was talking about Trump obviously dealing with dementia.
In fact, we’re here again. Talking about Joe Biden being in decline when he’s not even president anymore. Meanwhile, President dipshit gets a pass because everyone apparently goes “well he’s always been this stupid and ridiculous”
Now we’re gonna get weeks of this. The media rehashing what everyone knew already, acting like it’s new, and not covering what’s truly important. The complete selloff of America, and turn toward fascism
The news has always been selective on what they report on and willing to lie. NYT and others were straight up lying about Vietnam back in the day.
If there was some massive “cover up,” it wasn’t very successful. Do people not remember poll after poll, report after report detailing American’s (and specifically democrat’s) concerns about Biden’s age and mental fitness?
And I’m not just talking about the months of tension leading up to Biden’s poor debate performance, but worries that lasted throughout his presidency, especially during the last half of his term after he made it clear he’d be running for re-election.
That said, while I’m willing to admit that some of Biden’s advisors and campaign staff were likely downplaying concerns about his age, those concerns were not concealed from the public.
Anyone can make accusations of some “cover up” conspiracy in retrospect.
But honest questions were raised as early as Biden’s decision to run for a second term. He publicized himself as a transitional president after all; a return to normalcy and a break from the chaos of the first Trump administration.
The bigger issue for me at the time, was Biden’s choice to run again. And this was an issue for many. Those paying attention to the news cycle during this period of Biden’s term would have felt a general atmosphere of anxiety and unease, and in no small part thanks to the steady stream of reports, articles and public opinions from people sharing their misgivings. Including me…
And these misgivings became louder and louder as the election approached. I think some voters have memory-holed the fact that questions about Biden’s “fitness” were dominating the front pages of multiple news media outlets throughout Biden’s campaign, and before he stepped out of the race and chose Harris as his “successor.”
Too little too late? Yes, but part of the reason Biden dropped out was due to these constant concerns from voters and members of the party.
Biden shouldn’t have chosen to run for a second term. Hindsight is 20/20 sure, but this is my biggest frustration with him. And shoehorning Harris in during the late stages of the campaign was definitely not a boon to Democrats.
That said, Biden did face immense pressure from his party to drop out, and he did. Do you think someone like Trump would have done the same? I don’t think so… This doesn’t make me any less frustrated with Biden’s timing and his decision to run again though.
Whether you believe there was a “cover up” or not, many democrats did apply that pressure. They weren’t in on some grand conspiracy from the start.
I’d argue that instead of some conspiracy, Biden’s advisors and campaign staff were doing what any campaign team would have done. Does that make it any less problematic? No, not really… Are Biden and his advocates any less to blame? No.
But all I’m saying is don’t act like Biden wasn’t facing criticism and questions from Democrats prior to his disastrous debate performance. And as far as Republicans go, don’t project your party’s blind worship and your obsequious, uncompromising support for Trump on Democrats either.
They’re trying to sell us a book that implies no one knew Biden was old.
Can’t wait for the book by the media about how the media helped Trump to scapegoat all immigrants by making up insane stories about countries emptying their prisons and insane asylums into the country and never pushing back on it.
Once again, Stewart chooses to focus on some dumb but inconsequential story from the world of left leaning media while the country burns.
What is he thinking? Maybe call out the Trump admin for ignoring the SC and shipping off people to gulags without a trial? Or arresting members of Congress for inspecting facilities they’re entitled to inspect? Or for Trump, again, lining his own pockets with foreign donations?
This is just news bloat to distract from the debt ceiling raising and the Qatar bribes. Nobody in their right mind is on this story like it matters, there are a few major precedents of US Presidents hiding health woes from the news. FDR is a major one and he’s looked back upon as one of the best Presidents in recent history.
I love how this one ends where he shows a book about Trump that will come out supposedly a few months after Trump leaves office.
Jon nailed it.
We should have been told everything. Biden cost us greatly.
One of two possibilities…
* News anchors knew something was wrong and didn’t report it to drive book sales
* They thought that their sourcing for the book was too flimsy/unreliable to report on the news
Neither is a good look.
Read the news. NYT costs $4 a month and The Athletic comes with it.
He’s not wrong
I honestly love Jon’s take on things. He just puts the truth right in your face and you can either acknowledge it or keep your head in the sand. Moving forward though, Biden isn’t president anymore…sooo it’s time to move on from this and focus. Focus on the twatwaffle in charge. Sorry for the vulgarity but it was the most creative way I could describe him. This thing that is in charge right now is actively trying to erode our country all while, not slowly enough, slipping into dementia. Behind him is a swarm of mindless drones that just want money and power. The most apt way to put it is our country has been diagnosed with cancer and we need to start paying attention, stop playing around and seriously focus on a treatment.
At this moment CNN is re-airing a commercial disguised with Jake Tapper’s most sleazy and disagraceful appearance of his career.
He’s repeating his dishonest smears about Joe Biden, but now with additional embellishments. Bald faced lies like “Joe Biden was completely non-functional for the entire 90 minute debate.” And “The Biden family has a slogan to lie at all times.” What contemptible bullshit.
We saw the debate. While Biden had gaffes and stumbles, he had 87 minutes of coherent, intelligent, coherent, compassionate and well informed participation. Tapper is just lying and trying to change history.
Even as he is relaying third hand sensationized claims like “I had the impression his look was vacant and he didn’t remember who that was” Tapper HIMSELF also says he didn’t have that impression, obsequious interviewer Erin Burnett says she didn’t have that impression and the actual guy involved (Jake Sullivan) denies that it happened. Yet even with these three pieces of strong evidence, Tapper is selling a garbage gossip book saying the opposite.
His biggest evidence are people’s general impressions or one-off situations where Biden may or may not have forgotten someone’s name. I bet any person reading this has blanked on a name before. That doesn’t prove dementia, and sleazeball Jake Tapper knows that. Now also consider that as a 50+ year public figure and VP and POTUS, how many people Joe Biden has met during his career.
Tapper then smugly dismisses the criticism of his book and leans into pouring extra slime on Beau Biden, claiming he was a liar too.
Burnett ends the shameful commercial/interview in an interesting way. She says she looks forward to the sequel. Optimistic viewers might think she is talking about a sequel in which Tapper reports on an *actual* crime family, the Trumps, who actually do lie pathologically.
But nope. She clarified that she is looking for a sequel to include more unconfirmed lies about *Biden*, material that Tapper weirdly claims had to be cut from the book because of production deadlines.
Like Bob Woodward having all these notes and recordings that only come out when he’s pushing his books.
Knowing Biden was circling the drain as far back as 2021-2022 and that the government was running on autopilot for like 3 years was one of the most frustrating, demoralizing political experiences of my life.
And now I get to sit and listen to everyone who shouted me down and accused me of helping Trump say “whoopsie daisy, I didn’t know I swear. Someone should have said something!”
The defense campaign run for a man who has been actively *DYING* since at least the second year of his presidency will go down as one of the most staggering political blunders and exercises of electoral and strategic competence in modern history. And there’s no resignations, nobody is getting fired, no introspection on the toxic effect of anti-Trump negative polarization on the party’s ability to adapt and its use by the establishment to cement their visionless gerontocracy.
Every single talking head on TV should be too embarrassed to show their faces in public. And now they are gonna spend 2025 slinging books full of the same insider reporting they either pretended didn’t exist or actively called lies. Every tuned out liberal dope voter is gonna line up to buy it and fill the pockets of the people who put Trump back in power.
God damnit I am so angry.
I don’t get it. Surely, some of the other CNN anchors/reporters had news they wanted to break. Were they told to keep quiet? Tapper’s just a fox shill.
Woodward too. Held onto info about trump but he put it in a book years later.
Tapper, now one hundred percent more self-serving… and self-stroking.
The problem is the American people. An uneducated populace will not make informed decisions when critical thinking skills are not invested in. Most people don’t have the luxury of doing much more than the best they can. It’s too much, too fast, with zero time to adapt.
Bolton did the same thing. Withheld evidence to publish his “juicy” book.
I imagine the plan was to originally sell it closer to the election, but then Biden dropped out and they postponed to when Trump was horrible so they could capitalize and divert the news to sell more about Biden bad.
The irony of this article. It’s an article from the guardian, summarizing the opening monologues of John Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
Dogwater
Two things can be equal. You can be totally against Trumps government and also acknowledge that a media cover-up by Democrats in regard to Biden totally unacceptable.
The problem with freedom of the press is that the press has abused that freedom. What is needed is a better demarcation of what is news and what is editorializing. Force news networks to actually cite their sources and back up their words with evidence. Punish those “experts” who spout unverifiable nonsense, hearsay or who disguise their opinion as fact. If you want silly news programming, or the toxic nonsense that passes for news on Fox, you can have it but make sure it isn’t actually called news or presented as such.
trump is literally dismantling your country as we speak while installing himself as King thanks to an army of obedient little puppets but sure let’s talk about Old Man Biden and his maybe issues because a snake oil salesman is hawking his book
Bring back the fairness doctrine!!!
Jake Tapper is now arrogant as F. He’s unwatchable.
It gets even better if you include the rest of the quote, “…a year ago, for free!”
Yeah, it’s kinda weird how news people just turn into book salesmen after a while.
Isn’t the point of the book to highlight that attempts to report on this accurately were blocked/hidden?
I remember there being constant news on Biden’s health in the run up to and after the debate, as a result of internal disputes and sources. The book details the effort made to bury these attempts.
Really like Jon Stewart but this is a bit of a straw man argument against the media in my opinion. Would have been better in hindsight of course the country and democrat party had an open discussion and primary but the efforts were stiffled.
Stewart’s previous point still stands however that Dems were saying the election was an existensial threat to democracy, but were not acting or following up in an urgent manner.
Regardless, the whole scandal proves that the Biden administration were hubristic and left things far too late.
Loved how Stewart built up the segment with Biden cover up and then at the very end switched it to the ongoing Trump cover up
Telling us what? That the economy was kicking ass?that the infrastructure bill was kick ass-? CHIPS bill was kick ass? That manufacturing was on the rise? That maga is a psychotic death cult? Oh you mean Biden was old and in questionable health but still
Kickin ALL the asses?
Comments are closed.