NBC News correspondent Yamiche Alcindor took to Twitter to praise President Biden for his performance in a press conference Wednesday that NBC itself described as “bleak and discouraging.”
Pres Biden, in the longest news conference in presidential history, made news, pushed back on critics, called out lies, took responsibility for mistakes he believes he made, expressed surprise at GOP, talked foreign policy and didn’t lash out on reporters.
Quite the change.
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) January 19, 2022
Twitter immediately pounced.
Not even Jen Psaki would be willing to write something so gushing and propagandistic.
As I said when she was hired by NBC, the more out in the open they are about their absolute loyalty to the Democratic Party, the better: the more people will see what their real function is. https://t.co/eHGvBdrQuq
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 20, 2022
WH press release drops: https://t.co/2eVRNojGcH
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) January 20, 2022
While Alcindor is certainly right about its interminable length, Alcindor must not have seen Biden’s back-and-forth with RealClearPolitics reporter Phil Wegmann, in which the president most certainly “lashed out.”
This tweet is embarrassing on so many levels, but “didn’t lash out at reporters” is just false. He completely snapped at Phil Wegmann. https://t.co/qDixN3YR2E https://t.co/3JANThisiP
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) January 20, 2022
Wegmann asked whether Biden’s comparison of Democrat Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to segregationists like Bull Connor was an example of the “return to civility” that his 2020 campaign championed.
“No, I didn’t say that,” Biden responded to Wegmann on Wednesday, growing increasingly angry.
“Look what I said,” he sputtered. “Go back and read what I said, and tell me if you think I called anyone who voted on the side of the position taken by Bull Connor that they were Bull Connor.”
Challenged further by an amused Wegmann, Biden eventually admitted that the comparison to some of history’s most notorious racists was exactly what he intended.
“You don’t get to vote this way and, somehow, it goes away,” the president said. “This will be and stick with you the rest of your careers and long after you are gone.”
Biden was asked if he’s unified the country like he promised. Honest answer? Given he has a 33% approval rating right now he’s unified most in the country in agreeing he’s the wrong person to be president right now. Probably the biggest agreement after a year of his presidency.
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) January 19, 2022
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
