MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Former President Trump is, quote, "unfit to lead." President Biden is, quote, "embarrassing himself." Now these are not words fired across party lines but fired this week by The New York Times editorial board. In fact, this week marked the second anti-Biden editorial in the Times following his disastrous debate performance. How unusual is it for the newspaper of record to call out both candidates as nonviable? NPR's David Folkenflik reports on the media for us. He's with me now. Hey, David.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Hey, Mary Louise.
KELLY: For folks who miss these editorials, lay out briefly the central arguments that the editorial board made.
FOLKENFLIK: Sure. And the paper argued that each was unfit for office but on very different grounds. It made the case on June 28, so the day after that disastrous appearance in the debate for President Biden, that Biden had shown himself not able to focus, not able to be commanding, to bring his intellectual acuity to bear on the issues. He just said he couldn't lead. And then again, on July 8, it made the argument - really pitch - to Democratic leaders to say, you have to convince Biden to step aside because he can't be a messenger, even for his own record and his own priorities.
On former President Donald Trump, however, it said he's not fit to lead because it called him a liar. It said he is, you know, a man of incredible - you know, incredibly morally compromised, effectively, or worse, that his administration had been effectively corrupt and that, you know, he has kind of an autocratic and dystopian sense of what presidential leadership means. So very different but equally, you know, the case being made, not viable.
KELLY: Well, I'm trying to think if this has happened before, when the Times or some other major news source has said, none of the above. We're not going to endorse anybody here.
FOLKENFLIK: Well, so there are times where newspapers - you've seen local newspapers in particular, significant regional newspapers say, we're not going to endorse. You saw that at times in 2004, where some newspapers didn't want to endorse either Democratic nominee John Kerry or then-President George W. Bush.
This is a little different. This is saying that neither of these candidates is fit for the office. And in this case, both of them have held the office that is in question.
KELLY: Yeah.
FOLKENFLIK: You know, this is more than saying, we don't - we're not wild about it and holding our nose. This is saying, we want nothing to do with it.
KELLY: How much does it matter? I mean, in 2024, how consequential are political op-eds, even from The New York Times?
FOLKENFLIK: Sure. Well, editorials, I think, and endorsements, which is kind of a de-endorsement - I don't know what you want to call it, but a rejection - have been seen as decreasingly important and influential. A lot of news organizations have gotten - that had been in the business of doing that - newspaper chains, for example - have gotten out of that business, in part because they don't want to be perceived by readers and audiences of telling people what to do and in part because, you know, the rule of thumb these days is that these things are really effective the more locally focused they are. That is, they can switch the balance when people don't have a lot of information about local judges' elections or...
KELLY: Yeah.
FOLKENFLIK: ...Who may be for city council but not for this. In this case, though, there are signals. They're signaling to elites, to donors. You've seen that, you know, peeling away from President Biden. It's given rhetorical cover for political leaders. And so it's also a force amplifier because it feeds so much of what we see in social media, viral videos and, of course, on cable news.
KELLY: And just briefly, the relationship between either of these men and the media - Trump, of course, has attacked the media. Biden hasn't done that, but he has been pretty dismissive. What's the impact?
FOLKENFLIK: Sure. Give - let's take Trump as a given on this, being anti-media in rhetoric but relying on it to get his message out. For Biden, you know, he's had resentment. Take The New York Times - at the Times in 2020, during the Democratic primary, in endorsing not one but two of his rivals and not Joe Biden. Right now, he and his camp aren't looking to The New York Times to determine what he should do with his political fate.
KELLY: That is NPR's David Folkenflik. Thanks, David.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
