A spokesman for President Biden’s reelection campaign complained Wednesday that the news media are spending too much time covering Donald Trump’s show trials to the detriment of Biden.
T.J. Ducklo, who represents the campaign, specifically name-checked CNN and MSNBC for what he said was a failure to cover Biden’s recent appeals to black voters, a critical voting bloc for Democrats.
“The President just spoke to approx 1,000 mostly black voters in Philly about the massive stakes in this election,” Ducklo wrote in a post on X. “@MSNBC @CNN & others did not show it. Instead, more coverage about a trial that impacts one person: Trump. Then they’ll ask, why isn’t your message getting out?”
Ducklo’s complaint comes after he accused the news media in February of not dedicating enough coverage to Trump’s legal jeopardy, which the Biden White House has helped orchestrate. In a statement to PBS then, he said that the media were far too focused on covering Biden’s age and mental state, when reports should instead cover Trump with “the seriousness and ferocity this moment requires.”
Biden and Vice President Harris traveled to Philadelphia on Wednesday to continue their efforts to shore up support among black voters at Girard College, a majority-black private prepatory school. The campaign event followed a series of speeches and public events the campaign has hosted intended to bring back black voters, whom polls indicate are increasingly dissatisfied with the Biden-Harris White House. Some surveys show Trump showing support among black voters at nearly 20 percent.
TV for Biden’s campaign event showed a roaring crowd at Girard in a gym at only a fraction of capacity.
The image contrasts strongly with President Trump’s recent rally at the Bronx, photographs of which show thousands of attendees.
“President Trump’s outreach to minority voters is straightforward: he shows up, listens, and makes it clear that we’ll be better off with him as President, just like we were four years ago,” Janiyah Thomas, the Trump campaign’s director of black media, said in a public statement. “The Biden campaign sees that President Trump is up to 23% in the polls with Black voters, a record high that we haven’t seen in decades.”
