CNN Panelists Criticize Biden for Whining about Polls, Telling Americans ‘You’re Wrong’ about Economy

Welcome back to Forgotten Fact Checks, a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, we look at the media’s recent turn against President Joe Biden, review helpful advice on “gender-neutral language” from CNN, and cover more media misses.

CNN Anchors Offer Rare Mainstream Media Criticism on Biden Economy, Immigration

During a sit-down interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett last week, President Biden was defensive about his record on the economy amid polling showing that Americans are more trusting of former president Donald Trump on the issue.

“We’ve already turned it around,” Biden said, pointing to one poll that found most Americans say they are “personally in good shape” economically.

“The polling data has been wrong all along,” Biden told Burnett. “You guys do a poll at CNN, how many folks do you have to call to get one response? The idea that we’re in a situation where things are so bad … When I started this administration, people were saying there’s gonna be a collapse in the economy. We have the strongest economy in the world. Let me say that again, in the world.”

The message led to criticism from both CNN anchor John King and Democratic strategist David Axelrod, who took issue with Biden scolding Americans who are struggling to make ends meet.

“That sounds like somebody in Washington telling people, ‘you’re wrong.’ Whatever your party is, voters don‘t process it that way. They don‘t like that,” King said on Thursday.

CNN host Sara Sidner agreed: “Definitely don’t like being told they’re wrong because it’s how they’re actually experiencing the economy personally.”

Sixty percent of American workers say their incomes haven’t kept pace with increases in their household expenses because of inflation. The average household is paying $11,400 more each year to maintain the same quality of life as when Biden took office, according to one recent analysis.

“The inflation drag, the cost of living drag is still giant out in America, and they don’t like people in Washington telling them they’re wrong,” King said, explaining that he’d spoken with voters in nine states.

Axelrod, meanwhile, said Wednesday that Biden is “making a terrible mistake” in bragging about his economic record.

“It is absolutely true. The world was plunged into an economic crisis and America was plunged into an economic crisis by the pandemic and we’ve come back faster than almost any other country and he’s right about that. But that’s not the way people are experiencing the economy,” Axelrod told Burnett.

“If he doesn’t win this race, it may not be Donald Trump that beats him. It may be his own pride,” the former Obama adviser said.

CNN panelist Scott Jennings agreed. “You correctly confronted him with the statistics and the polling and he whined about that,” Jennings told Burnett.

“I think he must be mortified when he looks at poll after poll that says the American people trust Donald Trump more on the economy, they trust him to be a strong leader, and they believe that the world is in chaos because he is weak and Trump is strong. It must be mortifying that he can’t find a way out of this cul-de-sac,” he added.

And the economy isn’t the only issue leading the mainstream media to sour on Biden.

CNN host Fareed Zakaria said recently that Biden should “learn something from Trump” on the border.

“So, the whole system is broken,” Zakaria said during an appearance on PBS’s Firing Line. “And Biden needs to confront that and say, you know, ‘We are going to have to reform the whole system.’”

“I would wish he’d do something much more extreme, like say, ‘The old asylum system is dead. No one is coming in through that process. You have to apply from your home country,’” Zakaria added.

When host Margaret Hoover pointed out that that was in line with Trump policy, Zakaria agreed and also cited the Remain in Mexico policy as examples where Trump was “correct.”

“It’s also the right policy, because the old asylum system is being gamed by millions of people,” Zakaria said.

Zakaria said that under Biden, illegal immigrants are no longer running away from law enforcement, they’re running towards law enforcement.

“Because they have figured out that all they have to say is the magic words, ‘I have a credible fear of persecution,’ and bingo, you’re in the country legally,” he said. “You get two court hearings that can take seven years, meanwhile, you slip into the shadows of the economy.”

He suggested that Biden should declare an emergency national security crisis, send in the national guard, and redo the amnesty process.

“Much of what Trump did, the Muslim ban, banning TikTok, shutting down the border, was overturned by courts, but people remembered that he was trying,” Zakaria said. “Biden needs to do something symbolic at the border. Bill Clinton had a great line, he said the president doesn’t need to succeed, but they need to catch him trying, he’s gotta be seen to be trying to do stuff.”

The recent media criticism comes as a new set of polls find Trump leading Biden in five swing states, with voters still reporting dissatisfaction with both the economy and Biden’s foreign policy.

The new polls, conducted by the New York Times, Siena College and The Philadelphia Inquirer from April 28 to May 9,  found Trump ahead in Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Biden leads Trump in just one battleground state – Wisconsin.

The polls found the economy was the top issue for voters; 51 percent of respondents described the economic conditions in the country as “poor.”

Headline Fail of the Week

CNN offered a helpful explainer last week: “The case for saying ‘pregnant people’ and other gender-inclusive phrases.”

“The use of phrases such as ‘pregnant people’ or ‘penis owners’ in cultural or political discourse is sometimes met with confusion, or even anger,” it reads. “Why use these terms when, as some people ask, ‘only women can get pregnant’ or when ‘only men have penises?'”

“Those people and institutions using gender-neutral language aim to be cognizant of the fact that sex doesn’t always align with gender identity, said psychiatrist Dr. Jack Drescher, past president of the Group for Advancement of Psychiatry and clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University in New York City. And it’s the most inclusive, streamlined way to refer to everyone who, regardless of their gender identity, has certain anatomy or biological abilities,” the CNN explainer adds.

The CNN health piece quotes the director of public training at The Trevor Project: “We need to be doing a better job of educating people and realizing that sex and gender are a bit of a spectrum … and that they’re not the same,” said Keygan Miller. (More on The Trevor Project from National Review’s Caroline Downey here.)

The piece also seeks to get out ahead of concerns that referring to women as “pregnant people” or “people with uteruses” erases women.

Because there are “so many ciswomen and cismen and that they actually are a very large majority, language is not going to erase them,” Drescher told the outlet.

Media Misses

• The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz offers an unusual behind-the-scenes look into working relationships at the paper: “My editor retiring this month has f***ed me up worse than any breakup I’ve ever had. I throw up thinking about it and start crying. I literally don’t think I can work or exist without him idk what to do.”

• UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron called out the BBC for failing to describe Hamas as a terrorist organization during a live interview with the broadcaster.

“When you see what Hamas are prepared to do, you just realize the terrible, dreadful, inhuman people, frankly, that we are dealing with,” Cameron told BBC anchor Laura Kuenssberg. “Maybe it’s a moment, actually, for the BBC to ask itself again, should we describe these people as terrorists?”

“If you kidnap grandmothers, kidnap babies, you rape people, you shoot children in front of their parents, what more do they need to do for the BBC to say, ‘Look, these are terrorists?’” Cameron asked. “They are terrorists.” The BBC later responded to Cameron’s comments in a statement saying: “No one consuming BBC News can be left unaware of the horrific nature of Hamas’ acts. We’ve made our long-standing position on this matter very clear – we use the word terrorist when it is attributed to others, such as the UK Government.”

• The New York Times quoted Osama Siblani in a recent article about Biden’s broken relationship with prominent Muslim and Arab American leaders, calling him “the publisher of The Arab American News, an influential newspaper in Dearborn.” The descriptor fails to include the context that Siblani has an extensive history of praising Hamas and Hezbollah.