Jesus is a Newsweek reporter based in New York. Originally from Bogotá, Colombia, his focus is reporting on politics, current affairs and trending news. He has covered current affairs, healthcare, pop culture, and sports. Jesus joined Newsweek’s U.S. bureau in 2024, and has previously worked for The Financial Times and served as an international reporter and newsletter editor for El Espectador in Colombia. He graduated with an M.A. in Journalism and Digital Innovation from New York University. Languages: English, Spanish. You can get in touch with Jesus by emailing [email protected]

According to the facts, it was observed and verified first-hand through the journalist or informed and verified from competent sources.

President Joe Biden closed out his term with a definitive interview on MSNBC’s final word with Lawrence O’Donnell at 10 p. m. and Thursday. The Tête-à-tête marked the end of a half-century political career that has increasingly receded as president, who turned 82 in November, has aged.

The interview was with a kind host in a stressed friendly network that experienced a cave of his notes after the elections. The O’Donnell screen is transmitted at an hour of past expiration and attracts to around 1. 1 million viewers, which makes it the maximum moment of popular program in MSNBC Rachel Maddow, but far from the reach of a commercial negotiation diffusion as negotiation The new NBC or 60 minutes from CBS, does not say anything about viral Tiktoks and podcasts of Famen that have largely replaced television news for so many Americans.

O’Donnell, a former Democratic Senate aide, is also one of Biden’s more ardent supporters in the news media, having called his presser on the sidelines of a NATO summit this summer the “most masterful televised presidential news conference about foreign policy” ever delivered.

During the interview, Biden talked about the high Hamas-Israel fire announced on Wednesday and the conversations he had with President-elect Donald Trump surrounding Thearray

Biden noted a conversation he had with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, telling him that he “can’t be carpet bombing these communities” during the Hamas-Israel war. Netanyahu reportedly replied, “well, you did it,” Biden said, hearkening way back to U.S. involvement in the bombing of Berlin during World War II.

“That’s why we (the United Nations),” Biden said in Netanyahu,” he said.

Biden also asked about his farewell in the United States on Wednesday night and his precaution that an “oligarchy” is taking over the United States.

The president said that “if the resolution is made that the billionaires, the super, super rich and the richest in the world, begin to all the devices of the media to the economy, then who deserves to fight me for me?

The decision by the president to deliver his last word on O’Donnell’s Last Word suggests Biden is happy to leave office without one last big tangle with the more combative White House press corps.

Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive a response.

Biden also spoke on the economy, the Russia-Ukraine war and policy during his presidency, including the infrastructure bill. Speaking about his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding nuclear weapons use, Biden said that “nuclear weapons, tactical nuclear weapons … scares the hell out of everybody including the Russians.”

Biden was asked by O’Donnell about rising inflation during his presidency and he noted that as he exits office, inflation has had a “soft landing,” adding that when he came into office, it was during the COVID-19 pandemic and his administration had to push legislation to “take care of that.”

The president’s aversion to the media has been something of a constant throughout his term, with the exception of the period just after his disastrous debate performance this summer when he did a handful of radio and TV interviews in an attempt to shore up public perception of his cognitive ability.

Before the summer, Biden seemed determined to avoid the public eye, his team opting for controlled appearances over the unpredictable glare of unscripted moments and sit-down interviews. But as the presidential election approached, his retreat became impossible to ignore.

The turning point came in that June debate with Trump, a rematch that had been framed as Biden’s chance to underscore his leadership and contrast him with Trump’s impulsiveness. In the months leading up to the showdown, Biden had noticeably pulled back from the media spotlight, a move that only fueled speculation about his mental acuity.

Instead, the debate served as the beginning of the end. Biden appeared unsteady, his responses erratic, his voice a hoarse whisper. For the first time, even loyal Democrats began to ask uncomfortable questions about whether he was the right man to defeat Trump at the ballot box. What was intended as a strategy to avoid missteps ultimately backfired, paving the way for his decision to step aside in July.

Until that moment on the debate stage in Atlanta, questions about Biden’s age and cognitive abilities were met with silence, or outright dismissal, by many in the mainstream media. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, host of “Morning Joe,” infamously commented in March 2024: “Biden is far beyond cogent. He is better than he has ever been intellectually, analytically.”

It wasn’t until after the debate that some of the country’s largest media outlets began to ask questions that, many argue, they should have been asking all along. The press’ tone shifted. The New York Times issued a rare editorial urging Biden to reflect on whether he was still the best choice to lead the Democratic Party. Other traditionally supportive outlets like The New Yorker joined the chorus, with editor David Remnick writing about the “honor in recognizing the hard demands of the moment.”

Even Scarborough, one of Biden’s most loyal defenders just three months earlier, turned on the president after the debate, saying “If he were a CEO and turned in a performance like that, would any Fortune 500 corporation in America keep him on?”

Veteran political journalist Mark Halperin described the media “cover up” of Biden’s health “the worst scandal in American journalism history.”

“The press turned on him and acted like they had not just propped him up for seven years,” Halperin said during an interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson on his podcast just before the election. “They never acknowledged their participation as co-conspirators in a 7-year-long cover up, and then the same people get to cover the new candidate.”

In an attempt to control the debate fallout, Biden and his aides arranged a high-profile one-on-one interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC, which did little to quell the public skepticism.

“Especially in the aftermath of that first debate with Trump, the media started questioning Biden’s ability to run again,” media analyst Brad Adgate told Newsweek.

Biden leaves Washington as one less president of press meetings and media interviews among the last seven presidents, according to research by presidential researcher Martha Joynt Kumar.

Although Biden’s management was founded on virtual communication and exchanges of casual questions, the commitment of the classic press was rare. Based on the Kumar data, until June 2024, Biden participated in 588 improvised interactions with Newshouings his mandate, just a moment in Trump, but only contained 36 official press meetings and 125 interviews. In comparison, Trump conducted 327 interviews and Obama had 479 on similar issues in his presidencies.

“These casual interactions lacked the intensity of duty provided through interviews or press conferences,” said Adgate, said the media critic.

The limited presence of the president’s media was not just a strategy to protect it from the scrutiny of social networks, it has become a narrative itself. Although his team cited his stuttering for life as an explanation of his occasionally poor functionality in environments without scripts, the optics had become difficult to ignore.

After going to more solid shoes after a rite of degree presentation in the army in June 2023, some commentators raised the hypothesis that their team silently identified their physical decline. However, questions about their intellectual sharpness have been widely ignored, even if the survey has shown that Americans had serious questions about their physical and cognitive abilities.

A PBS Newshour / NPR / Marist survey published in April 2023 showed that only 47% of Democrats have been chosen to Biden, with a significant fall among young Democrats.

Although the questions about their intellectual condition had been avoided -which Jill Abramson, former editor in Chief of New York Times, attributed to the political considerations of the desires of news about “not being accused of having helped Donald Trump” – , the media clients began to raise considerations on the accessibility of the president of the nation. In March 2024, the Times published a little frequent public article in which he criticized the Directorate for his limited commitment to the journalistic desires.

“For anyone who understands the role of the free press in a democracy, it deserves to be troubling that President Biden has been so active and well that he avoided questions,” he said.

The Undersecretary of the White House Press, Andrew Bates, responded to the criticisms of time, stating: “President Biden transmits his message to the other US people through aggressive and fashion and virtual and global communication. ” New Yorker, Propublic, and for Fareed Zakaria of CNN, as well as appearances in News cable, with MSNBC leading the count.

The presidency of Biden coincided with seismic adjustments in the Americans who consume news, because the classical media faced the decrease in trust and minimization in the public.

A recent Gallup poll found that roughly 70% of Americans have little to no such true acceptance with the press, making it the least accepted as a true floating establishment in the country, even in Congress. Meanwhile, podcasters and independent creators have noticed their fortunes jumping during the Biden years, with personalities like Joe Rogan drawing more listeners than ABC, NBC, and CBS’s combined late-night showings.

Trump was one of the first to recognize, and capitalize on this new reality, through eluded sales problems to directly attribute to their base directly through social media platforms now in shape through technological titans that adopt a new Ethics of “” The absolutism of freedom of freedom of expression. “Biden, on the other hand, attached to a more classic electronic books, which felt out of tune with virtual age.

“If Biden just revises his administration, I’m confident he can reconsider the way he controlled the media,” Adgate said. “Having more press meetings or more discussions with journalists, like previous presidents, could make a difference. But with the immediate cycle of information, especially in the last decade, I’m sure of the importance of press meetings.

As the president prepares to leave Washington, he does so with the low-key flavor that explained a giant component of his presidency. Biden’s verbal exchange with O’Donnell focuses on his heritage as he moved the controversies that reignited him in 2024.

MSNBC is among the outlets still adjusting to the return of Trump. On the same day it announced O’Donnell had landed Biden’s final interview, the cable network said that Maddow would return to hosting her show five nights a week—a clear signal that the liberal wing of the mainstream media is preparing to ramp up coverage of a president who thrives on constant visibility.

Update of 01/16/25, 10:57 p. m. Y: This article was updated to come with the comments of the Biden interview with MSNBC on Thursday night.

Jesus is a Newsweek reporter based in New York. Originally from Bogotá, Colombia, his goal is to report on politics, existing issues, and new trends. He covered existing businesses, fitness, pop culture, and sports. Jesús joined the American workplace at Newsweek in 2024 and has already worked for the Financial Times and a foreign journalist and editor, at El Espectador’s main in Colombia. She graduated with a master’s degree in journalism and virtual innovation from New York University. Languages: English, Spanish. You can contact Jesus by emailing j. mosquera@newsweek. com

Jesus is a Newsweek journalist based in New York. Originally from Bogotá, Colombia, its objective is to inform about policy, existing issues and new trends. Covered existing businesses, physical care, pop culture and sports. Jesus joined the American workplace in Newsweek in 2024 and has already worked for the Financial Times and a foreign journalist and editor, in El Espectador in Colombia. He graduated with a mastery in virtual journalism and innovation at the University of New York. Languages: English, Spanish. You can contact Jesus by sending an email to j. mosquera@newsweek. com