Greg Gutfeld, co-host of The Five, and his own late-night show, has never been known for nuance or intellectual depth. In a recent monologue, he managed to outdo his usual level of hyperbole and partisan theatre. Declaring that “legacy media” had died on June 27, 2024, the night of Biden’s debate against Donald Trump. Gutfeld claimed that that the press had engaged in a coordinated cover-up of Biden’s alleged cognitive decline.
“You can blame the Dems, or Jill Biden,” he said, “but no, this was self-inflicted. Cue the bagpipes.”
The claim that the media engaged in a cover-up is demonstrably false. The very night of the debate, outlets across the political spectrum reported extensively on Biden’s faltering performance. CNN and MSNBC ran critical analyses. The New York Times and Washington Post published op-eds raising concerns. Even centrist outlet NewsNation joined the chorus of scrutiny. Gutfeld’s own employer, Fox News, covered the story with it’s usual zeal, amplifying criticisms and drawing conclusions about Biden’s mental fitness for office.
The debate performance was not hidden from the public. It was dissected in real time and for days after. The idea that it was a cover-up collapses under even a cursory review of media coverage from June 27 onward.
Gutfeld’s claim ignores the years of relentless coverage, primarily from Fox News and other outlets pushing the narrative that Biden was in mental decline. As early as 2020, Fox was running daily segments speculating about Biden’s mental acuity. According to a Media Matters analysis, Fox mentioned Biden’s mental decline over 600 times in a single six month period in 2021. The idea that this is a story that the media suppressed is not just absurd, it’s a distortion to discredit any outlet that doesn’t carry water for Trump.
It’s also worth noting that while Biden gaffes are scrutinized endlessly, Trump’s frequent verbal slips, disjointed speech and moments of apparent confusion, are consistently ignored or excused by the same outlets. When Trump confused Niki Haley for Nancy Pelosi or seemed unaware of which country he was speaking about in foreign policy discussions, right -Wing and centrist media either downplayed the moments or ignored them entirely.
The double standard is not accidental. It’s a part of a broader projection in which figures like Gutfeld play a central role. Gutfeld is not a journalist. He’s not even a credible political commentator. He’s nothing but an entertainer, one whose job is not to inform but inflame. His goal is to paint every institution that doesn’t align with the MAGA worldview, as corrupt, broken, or dead.
Ironically, Fox News is itself a pillar of the very legacy media Gutfeld derides. Founded in 1996, it has been a dominant force in cable news for nearly three decades. And it has a long history of disseminating the falsehoods about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, to its 2020 election lies which led to a 787.05 million dollar settlement with Dominion Voting Systems. To date, Fox has never issued an apology to viewers for spreading false claims that the election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Gutfeld closed his rant with an attempt at poetic vitriol, referencing Russia Gate, the lab leak theory, and even Taylor Swift, concluding with, “May you rest in pain.” This kind of rhetoric, juvenile and un-serious, has become standard fare on his show. It doesn’t inform. It doesn’t challenge. It reinforces a grievance-driven narrative for an audience that doesn’t believe in fact and reality.
What Gutfeld and his colleagues fear is not the demise of the media. They fear journalists and institutions that still value truth, that still attempt to hold power accountable, even when that power is embodied in someone they support. They fear transparency, not bias.
Sources: Mediaite, Media Matters.
The Weekly News 