Former Vice President Joe Biden requested a top aide to President Trump be barred from television. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) called for the president to be blocked from his favorite mode of communication.
Welcome to the Big Asks phase of the Democratic primary, where contenders are attempting to navigate not only competing against each other, but also the potential general election face-off with President Trump--and convince external platforms to even the playing field.
The strategies–calling for major news networks to abstain from booking Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani in Biden’s case, and asking the CEO of Twitter to suspend Trump’s account in Harris’—represent a similar desire to control the free press’ dissemination of Trump’s message as he ramps up his own 2020 attacks. And it’s raising red flags for strategists from both sides of the aisle.
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Indeed, former campaign aides to Republican and Democratic candidates expressed a sense of confusion and, at times, disbelief, over Biden's and Harris’ recent requests to remove major platforms for their chief political rivals to communicate.
“They want the media platforms to be rigged in their favor, but you have to fight this yourself,” said Amanda Carpenter, a political strategist who served as senior communications adviser for Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign. “You can’t expect other people to do it.”
Biden’s frontrunner position for most of the Democratic primary has seen signs of slipping in recent weeks. He has dropped slightly in several polls and raised significantly less money than progressive rivals Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in the third fundraising quarter of the year. But most significantly is the preoccupation by Trump and his allies on the former vice president’s son Hunter, who has been accused without evidence of misconduct in Ukraine.
Haunted by the disinformation campaigns from troll farms in Russia and at home that plagued the 2016 elections, Democrats are particularly attuned to how the tactics hurt Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016. Since the Trump campaign is particularly fond of stoking conspiracy theories, some campaigns are trying everything to fight back.
For Biden’s campaign that has meant making an unorthodox request. In a letter to top news executives and anchors, Biden’s top aides contended that by allowing Giuliani to spread debunked accusations through their outlets, they are elevating falsehoods into the political discourse.
“By giving him your air time, you are allowing him to introduce increasingly unhinged, unfounded and desperate lies into the national conversation,” aides Anita Dunn and Kate Bedingfield wrote.
While presenting a critique of coverage is commonplace among campaigns of both political persuasions, former aides to past presidential candidates said Biden’s campaign crossed boundaries in calling to change the rules of engagement, raising questions about free speech issues in the process.
“I’m not enthusiastic about that strategy,” said James Carville, a Democratic strategist who served as former President Bill Clinton’s top campaign adviser. “I don’t think it’s a very smart response. Just forget about it and move on.”
Multiple strategists pointed to Giuliani’s often incoherent rants during his cable news appearances as providing political gold to Biden’s campaign. If Biden’s campaign was more strategic, some argued, they would book members of their own team to combat the misinformation in real-time.
“If you know Rudy Giuliani is going to be on, have someone on to counter it,” Carpenter said. “You’ve got to own that space. If you don’t own that media space, Trump is going to own it for you.”
A Trump campaign official who spoke with The Daily Beast said the strategy is already working in their favor.
“You know the Democrats running for president have lost the argument when they’re hiding from the press and trying to dictate who can and cannot go on TV or what the president can and cannot tweet,” the official said.
But calls for social and traditional media to change their operating procedures are not likely to die down as more campaigns seek to present the starkest contrast to Trump as possible.
On Thursday, CNN announced it would not run a new 30-second Trump campaign ad titled “Biden Corruption, saying in a statement that it does not meet the outlet’s advertising standards, disparages its journalists, and makes “demonstrably false” claims.
The move comes as Trump faces support by House Democrats for an impeachment inquiry, following the news that he pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to find damaging information about Biden, whom he considers a top rival.
The news organization said the ad makes “demonstrably false” claims about allegations of corruption.
On Friday afternoon, another 2020 Democrat, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), called for television stations across early voting states—where the Trump and Biden campaign are ramping up ad spending—not to air the ad.
“TV stations across the country, especially those reaching voters in the early states that will play a major role in selecting our nominee, should refuse to air these baseless ads meant to deceive voters,” Booker’s campaign manager Addisu Demissie wrote in an email to reporters. “We all have a responsibility to do the right thing and prevent Trump from defaming an honorable man and public servant with straight-up lies. I should hope that stations in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina join CNN in refusing to air this garbage.”
Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster for Biden’s campaign who spoke with The Daily Beast in a personal capacity, called Biden’s decision to call on networks not to book Giuliani “fantastic.”
“People are really upset you can’t get the truth anymore,” Lake said. “The media is one of the institutions that has declined most rapidly in terms of respect.”
She also disagreed with the advice to present more Biden surrogates on air to counter the claims.
“I don’t think that is right,” she said. “It legitimizes Rudy Giuliani and says this is a debate between equals.”
But Biden is not alone in making substantial procedural asks to the media.
Harris made a stunning request in a letter to CEO Jack Dorsey to suspend the president’s Twitter account after he suggested that a civil war could break out in the country if he gets impeached.
“Look let's be honest, @realDonaldTrump's Twitter account should be suspended,” the California senator, who argues a series of Trump’s tweets violate the Twitter User Agreement, also wrote on Twitter. Harris pointed to Trump’s own words directed at the whistleblower who filed a complaint about his call with the Ukrainian president in July.
“Twitter has written one set of rules for powerful interests, and a different one for the rest of us. They let Donald Trump violate their rules because he is Donald Trump,” National Press Secretary Ian Sams tweeted. “The stakes are too high to let this continue. He's putting people at risk and endangering democracy.”
But Harris’ moves received pushback from pundits, reporters, and even some 2020 rivals. When asked by a reporter if she believes Twitter should ban Trump’s account, Warren said “no” with a slight laugh. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) also said no when asked, adding “I think freedom of speech is something that is an important, foundational, right in our democracy.”
Sams responded to Gabbard by writing: “This was the exact talking point @FoxNews personalities were promulgating on air all day yesterday.”
Still, not everyone agreed with that framework.
“Not how a president acts,” one Democratic strategist who’s neutral in the 2020 primary said. “It’s lame.”
Harris’ call comes as tech giants are facing new questions about how to regulate content, including misinformation and concerns about hacking, heading into the next presidential election.
Last month, Facebook announced that politicians would not be subjected to the company’s previously stated standards of harassment and hate speech.
Nick Clegg, the company’s head of global policy, wrote in a blog post that Facebook would “treat speech from politicians as newsworthy content that should, as a general rule, be seen and heard.” In addition, the company said it does not fact-check content created by politicians.
