Joy Reid Slams NYT’s ‘Laser-Focused’ Biden Reporting: Like ‘Whip-Up to the Iraq War’

MSNBC host Joy Reid slammed the New York Times for its “laser-focused” reporting on President Joe Biden’s mental fitness for office “with no focus on the fact [former President Donald] Trump has been showing signs of cognitive decline for years.”

The host dedicated a segment of her Tuesday night show, The ReidOut, to attacking the newspaper for continuing to report on public concerns around the president’s age and health following his presidential debate performance, despite the fact, she claims, that “the majority are still publicly standing by Biden” and the president’s insistence that “it’s time to put Trump in the bullseye.”

During her show, Reid criticized the New York Times editorial board for an essay published that day which called on Biden to step out of the race for a second time.

Important to note here that The New York Times has never called on Trump to step aside or for his resignation, not when his administration was tearing migrant babies from their mother’s arms or when he suggested people inject bleach into their bodies to combat a raging pandemic or when he incited a violent insurrection with the goal of overturning an election so he could just stay in office forever.

Reid then went after the newspaper’s journalistic coverage, complaining about an article “about Dr. Kevin Cannard, an expert on Parkinson’s disease who visited the White House eight times over the course of eight months.”

The reporting does not, however, elaborate on why he was at the White House or if the president was even there when he visited – which, according to NBC news, most of the time he wasn’t. Biden was only at the white house for a few of those dates. For most of them he was traveling.

This is verifiable information that the Times apparently didn’t bother to check before posting a story heavily implying that the president suffers from Parkinson’s disease. They also apparently ignored the fact that the president around that same time period was launching an administrative initiative to combat Parkinson’s disease, something that was also public knowledge.

Reid then presented information from the president’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, in a letter published Monday night that explained that while Canard does perform physicals on the president, he also holds neurology clinics for active-duty military members stationed at the White House.

And yet, the Times isn’t letting up. They seem laser focused on Biden’s age and acuity with no focus on the fact Trump has been showing signs of cognitive decline for years. As the New Republic’s Greg Sargent puts it: ‘One thing that’s clear from the Biden age story is this – the New York Times knows how to crusade when it wants to and the New York Times is crusading against Biden’s mental unfitness for office in a way it’s just not doing with Trump.’

Bringing Sargent on air, Reid compared the coverage to the New York Times’ role in selling the case for the Iraq War using dubious articles about Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s weapons program written by reporter Judith Miller.

Reid said of the Biden story: “It’s noticeable in the way the whip-up to the Iraq war was noticeable.”

Sargent countered somewhat: “I think it’s important to say at the outset that the Times does, as they say, really cover Trump very aggressively. They have done a fabulous set of stories on the authoritarian threat Trump poses in a second term and so forth. That stuff is the Times at its absolute best. Really great investigative work, professionally done.”

Concerning the Biden coverage, he continued: “But the difference is kind of one of tone and volume and placement. With the Biden age story, there’s sort of a relentless quality to it, a drumbeat, and a kind of crusading intensity that they kind of achieve by picking at a story incrementally from every conceivable angle. What I think that does is, it sends an alarm to readers. It says, readers, you should pay attention to this. You should be worried about this. This is a big thing. And that doesn’t really happen with the Trump coverage in the same way as good as it is.”

Watch above on MSNBC.