Joe Biden’s Christmas message, delivered on Friday alongside his wife, Jill, focused largely on the coronavirus pandemic, a central theme of his campaign. Biden talked about the trimmed-down family dinner his family enjoyed, emphasized the need to maintain social distance, and asked viewers to “consider limiting travel in the size of family gatherings as well this year.”
The Bidens thanked healthcare and essential workers, as well as members of the US military, and Jill Biden spoke optimistically about being able to “come together” next year with “renewed appreciation for the people and traditions we love.”
In typical liberal fashion, Biden wished viewers both a “merry Christmas” and “happy holidays.”
One day earlier, Trump fired off a similar message with First Lady Melania. Trump, who has claimed that a Biden administration would take the word ‘Christmas’ “out of the vocabulary,” didn’t mention “holidays,” and instead told the story of Jesus’ birth.
After that, Melania talked about the “great challenge” of the coronavirus pandemic, and thanked teachers, healthcare workers, scientists, law enforcement and military personnel for their sacrifices. Trump promised that a “safe and effective” vaccine “will soon end this terrible pandemic,” calling the vaccine’s speedy development a “Christmas miracle.”
Clocking in at around two and a half minutes each, both videos touched on similar themes. Yet the mainstream media hammered Trump for “barely [making] reference” to the ongoing pandemic, to quote NBC News. New York’s Spectrum News described the two politicians’ messages as “starkly different,” as did the UPI press agency.
Were they watching the same videos as the rest of the country?
As it turned out, they weren’t. These outlets all compared Biden’s video message with a short written message posted on the White House’s website, in which Trump made only passing reference to the virus, thanking frontline workers and medical professionals.
Despite blasting Trump in its headline, NBC admitted at the foot of its article that “in a video posted to Twitter on the day before Christmas, Trump and Melania Trump, however, addressed the pandemic at length.” Spectrum and UPI both left out the fact that Trump had released a full video on Christmas Eve.
Yet even on Christmas Eve, journalists found a bone to pick with the Trumps. The Daily Mail scolded the First Family for not mentioning the death toll from the virus, even after speaking at length about the fight against it.
Later on Christmas Day, Trump announced on Twitter that he was about to deliver “a short speech to service members all over the world.” Journalists hoping to promptly pick the speech apart were left short-changed however, as the president added “Fake News not invited!”
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