When Russian President Vladimir Putin made the extraordinary offer a few weeks back to debate President Biden, he set only one condition. He insisted that the debate be live. In other words, not recorded in order to be filtered by the media before being aired later.
No, the reason that the authoritarian strongman “killer” insisted the debate be live was so that Mr. Biden would not benefit from the slobbering house press in America constantly covering for him.
At an actual press conference Thursday inside the actual White House, an alleged reporter asked Mr. Biden about the national humanitarian crisis he alone has created at our southern border — by far the greatest crisis of his young presidency (so far).
“The perception of you that got you elected as a moral and decent man is the reason why a lot of immigrants are coming to this country and entrusting you with unaccompanied minors,” Yamiche Alcindor gushed before asking several softball “questions.”
In all fairness, Ms. Alcindor may sound like a special interest operative pretending to be a journalist inside the White House because she actually works for the Public Broadcasting Service, a government-funded organization. Maybe she sounds hopelessly compromised because, well, maybe she is.
Whatever the case, it was a shocking display of corruption and collusion between the current White House and the supposedly independent press entrusted to ask questions and hold elected officials accountable.
Mr. Putin — the former KGB “killer” himself — literally cannot get that kind of press coverage. Mr. Biden’s media coverup is so blatant that the only way Mr. Putin would debate the guy is without the press running interference.
Is it any wonder how this guy won the election without even running a campaign?
The crisis at the border is nothing short of a national security catastrophe. Drugs, criminals and who knows who else are streaming across the border. Democrats have built a wall around the U.S. Capitol to protect themselves and stationed thousands of National Guard troops to man the new wall. All to protect themselves from American citizens.
Yet our actual border is overrun and these people do nothing about it.
In addition to a national security catastrophe, the border is also a growing humanitarian disaster. People are raped, trafficked and enslaved. Children are dying — all because Mr. Biden chose wild political pandering over sovereignty and statesmanship.
And he thinks it is funny.
“Well, look, I guess I should be flattered people are coming because I’m the nice guy,” he replied Thursday to the “question” from state television’s Yamiche Alcindor.
“That’s the reason why it’s happening, that I’m a decent man,” he joshed. “That’s why they’re coming — because they know Biden’s a good guy.”
Mr. Biden went on to spout a bunch of lies about how there isn’t really any crisis at the border and the current surge is no more than previous surges. All of it lies. By any measure, this current surge breaks records. They are literally showing up at the border wearing Biden T-shirts.
Of course, nobody pressed Mr. Biden on those lies or all of his jokiness about how popular he is among illegals.
Not that there were not White House reporters present who would have liked to have pressed him. But Mr. Biden and the White House press shop have re-instituted a policy of hand-picking who gets to ask questions.
In other words, Mr. Biden picks state television to ask a question because he has a pretty good idea what kind of question she is going to ask — especially if she has been forewarned ahead of time, which is often the case.
Truly, Vladimir Putin would kill for a press this adoring, corrupt and compliant.
• Charles Hurt is opinion editor of The Washington Times. He can be reached at churt@washingtontimes.com.