Biden duplicitously continues Trump's war on the press
His rhetoric is much better than Trump's. But what about his record?
![President Biden.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/76WiDxA78yXwRTDoJjiw3V-415-80.jpg)
President Biden will never call the press the "enemy of the people." He won't whine about "nasty" media "witch hunts" or taunt reporters as "fake news." He won't praise political allies if they physically assault journalists on the campaign trail.
That does not mean he is the champion of press freedom he makes himself out to be.
Biden came to office following an administration with uniquely antagonistic rhetoric toward the media. Former President Donald Trump deeply needed press attention, but he also needed to posture as an opponent of the press — which, handily, tended to get him even more press attention. His animosity was frequent and noxious enough that some anticipated Trump-inspired violence or even covert state assassination of journalists.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
![https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516-320-80.jpg)
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Biden rejects all this, of course, exactly as you'd expect a Democratic president of his ilk to do. He vehemently condemns assaults on press freedom abroad and lauds reporters' bravery and honesty at length. Journalists "are indispensable to the functioning of democracy," he's said, declaring it "incumbent on all of us to counter ... threats to a free and independent media." Last month, Biden denounced Trump-era Department of Justice subpoenas of journalists' phone and email records, calling the secretive practice "simply, simply wrong" and promising the same would not happen on his watch.
But just as Trump's vicious words belied his more mundane and tangible threats to the press, so do Biden's plaudits. While attention focused on Trump's harsh language, his administration continued a long presidential tradition of spying on members of the media, coercing revelation of reporters' sources, and punishing whistleblowers. Trump continued "the aggressive crackdown on journalists" that is a little-remembered part of former President Barack Obama's legacy, as reporter James Risen (who was targeted by Obama and George W. Bush before him) wrote at The New York Times in 2016:
[The Obama administration] prosecuted nine cases involving whistle-blowers and leakers, compared with only three by all previous administrations combined. It has repeatedly used the Espionage Act, a relic of World War I-era red-baiting, not to prosecute spies but to go after government officials who talked to journalists. Under Mr. Obama, the Justice Department and the FBI have spied on reporters by monitoring their phone records, labeled one journalist an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal case for simply doing reporting, and issued subpoenas to other reporters to try to force them to reveal their sources and testify in criminal cases. [The New York Times]
This is the exact tradition Biden now prolongs, picking up where Trump left off.
The Biden Justice Department did not immediately stop those Trump-era subpoenas, it turns out. Rather, as Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan wrote Monday, "the department continued to pursue subpoenas for reporters' email logs issued to Google, which operates the New York Times' email systems, and it obtained a gag order compelling a Times attorney to keep silent about the fact that federal authorities were seeking to seize his colleagues' records."
The Biden DOJ "finally back[ed] down in the face of reporting about its conduct," Ryan notes. But it has yet to respond to information requests from the Post, and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki "released a statement disavowing White House knowledge of the actions that appear to have continued for several months during Biden's presidency."
Then there's a strange story from USA Today last week. In April, the FBI "demanded the production of records containing IP addresses and other identifying information 'for computers and other electronic devices' that accessed" a USA Today story about a Florida shootout involving FBI agents "during a 35-minute time frame starting at 8:03 p.m. on the day of the shooting."
The FBI withdrew the subpoena after the newspaper fought it in court, arguing it was unconstitutional and a violation of the Biden "Justice Department's guidelines on the 'narrow circumstances' in which the government can subpoena reporters. Those arguments don't seem to have won the day, however. The FBI retreated because it found the person it sought in the reader records "through other means," not because it realized the error in its ways of overstepping First Amendment bounds.
It's early days yet for this administration, and the federal government is a large and unwieldly bureaucracy. It does not pivot on a dime.
Yet if Biden's praise of the press is anything more than a partisan mirror of Trump's attacks, he'll need to effect a pivot on press freedom, and not only when he gets caught or risks a loss in court. Asking congressional Democrats to act on the Post and Times editorial calls for new legislative protections for journalists — not executive orders or departmental policies, which are fairly easily reversed — would be a good place to start.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
-
Netanyahu makes controversial address
Speed Reads Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress denounced Gaza war protestors
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Twisters review: 'warm-blooded' film explores dangerous weather
The Week Recommends The film, focusing on 'tornado wranglers', stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell
By The Week UK Published
-
The US presidents who decided not to run for a second term
The Explainer Joe Biden's decision to end his re-election campaign was shocking, but there's a long history of presidents who've bowed out on a chance at four more years
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
The US presidents who decided not to run for a second term
The Explainer Joe Biden's decision to end his re-election campaign was shocking, but there's a long history of presidents who've bowed out on a chance at four more years
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Why is China stockpiling resources?
The Explainer The superpower has been amassing huge reserves of commodities at great cost despite its economic downturn
By Richard Windsor, The Week UK Published
-
What has Kamala Harris done as vice president?
In Depth It's not uncommon for the second-in-command to struggle to prove themselves in a role largely defined by behind-the-scenes work
By Theara Coleman, The Week US Published
-
'Spare us the charade'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, The Week US Published
-
The GOP is Donald Trump Jr.'s party now
In The Spotlight The former president's gun-loving, live-streaming adult son has emerged as more than just his father's namesake — he's become a Republican powerhouse of his own
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
For God and country: is religion in politics making a comeback?
Talking Point There are many MPs of faith in the new Labour government despite it being the most openly secular House of Commons in history
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
The attack on Donald Trump
Opinion We've seen this kind of shooter before
By Susan Caskie Published
-
74 things Donald Trump has said about women
Feature The former president has a long history of controversial remarks about the opposite sex
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published