CNN’s Brian Stelter is nothing if not predictable, but sometimes even he manages to stumble upon the truth though it’s usually done in such a way that he doesn’t even realize it.
As RedState readers will recall, the reelection of Donald Trump ushered forth a new dynamic on Capitol Hill. In the weeks after he was elected, he effectively took charge, issuing periodic announcements about the people he planned to nominate for cabinet positions, sharing thoughts on current events and how he would handle them, announcing major deals with CEOs, putting pressure on Congressional Republicans, etc.
He was, as some suggested in so many words at the time, essentially the de facto president after November 5th because Joe Biden was virtually nowhere to be found outside of the occasional statements posted to the White House website about who he was pardoning (preemptively and otherwise) or what death row inmate’s sentence he was commuting to life without parole.
SEE ALSO: ‘MAGA!’ Donald Trump Kicks Off 2025 With Powerful Reminders of the Past, and What’s Ahead
On Sunday, Stelter – who was attending the Super Bowl – took to the Twitter/X machine to make comparisons between Biden and Trump in terms of how often a person saw and thought about them during their time in office, respectively.
Bizarrely, despite Stelter’s insistence over the years (mainly during Trump’s first term) that the leader of the free world make themselves available often for questions from the press – which Trump does, apparently in his view things were better during Biden’s presidency because we didn’t see or think about him a whole lot:
Think about it: A year ago you could go days without seeing or thinking about Joe Biden. Now you’re lucky if you can go hours without thinking about President Trump. He’s inescapable. And that’s just how he likes it. Today: The Super Bowl is also the Trump Bowl.
Stelter’s remarks sparked a backlash in which his commentary was turned against him and the media at large:
A lot of us asked why the media went days without seeing or thinking about Joe Biden, actually. pic.twitter.com/7wf826CCES
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) February 10, 2025
Lol. That’s because Joe Biden spent half his presidency vacationing in Delaware while a bunch of staffers ran the country and propagandists like you turned a blind eye 🙈 https://t.co/uDL58zZwzP
— Brandon 🇺🇸🥓🥃 (@Brash_1) February 10, 2025
Another Twitter/X user responded with another inconvenient point.
“I don’t think you’ve gone 2 minutes without thinking about Trump in the past 9 years.”
Ouch.
But beyond the dunks, it was interesting to see Stelter suggest that not seeing the president for long stretches of time was actually a good thing, when that was one of the core problems with Biden’s presidency: That he was an absentee president, wasn’t present half the time, and even when he was, he didn’t appear to be all there – which is when his handlers stepped in.
Stelter’s .02 is especially fascinating when one considers his fretting over First Lady Melania Trump allegedly going missing at one point during Trump’s first term:
Flashback: CNN’s Brian Stelter aired a calendar to suggest First Lady Melania Trump was missing when she was actually recovering from kidney surgery pic.twitter.com/7UTVyQeASB
— Amber Duke (@ambermarieduke) August 18, 2022
Sooo… to recap: Democrat presidents laying low is a good thing, Republican First Ladies being out of the spotlight for more than a couple of days is problematic, and Republican presidents being out front and center to let the people know they are there and leading is going overboard.
Got it (I think!).
