PBS, NPR and the 'Unfounded' Charge of the Bidens Hiding Cancer

Tim Graham on May 21, 2025

You can always tell when a leftist media outlet doesn't like a story angle. They'll cry "no evidence," and you want to ask them if they actually spent any time searching for evidence. It's their way of suggesting the story is too disreputable to pursue, like Hunter Biden's laptop.

On the "PBS News Hour" on May 19, the term was "unfounded." Republicans are "pouncing" on the news that Joe Biden has an aggressive case of prostate cancer. PBS anchor Amna Nawaz lamented: "Donald Trump Jr. has posted online, claiming that the diagnosis here was part of a wider cover-up around Mr. Biden's health. He's also repeating unfounded claims that Biden clearly had dementia."

Here's what the president's son tweeted: "The Dem-Media is trying to cover up the coverup over Biden's failing health -- Which was obvious to anyone with a functioning brain -- Because they know it implicates all of them."

It's not "unfounded" to claim that the media cooperated in shaming and suppressing Biden's cognitive decline.

The online headline for Nawaz's lament focused on the end of the Monday night pundit segment, which focused on Trump: "Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on the battle over Trump's 'big, beautiful bill.'" It looks like they couldn't "ruin" the home page with Biden skepticism in the headline.

The U-word was repeated. NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith added: "President Trump himself has now also made unfounded claims about how President Biden must have known that he had cancer long before this was made public."

Nawaz and Keith made no time for Democrat Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel's comments on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that the advanced stage of Biden's cancer strongly suggests that he had cancer throughout his presidency. Are MSNBC and the Democrat doctor guilty of "unfounded claims"? Why can't they spend 24 hours looking into this story before making knee-jerk denunciations?

NPR's homepage offered a similar headline: "Trump suggests without evidence that Biden delayed sharing his cancer diagnosis." The story began: "President Trump suggested without evidence on Monday that former President Joe Biden had delayed sharing his prostate cancer diagnosis."

PBS and NPR would never air stories suggesting "Joe Biden/Kamala Harris suggested without evidence that Donald Trump is a fascist." Or in the current moment, they didn't report "Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made the unfounded charge that ICE agents are 'Trump's modern-day Gestapo.'"

Instead, when Harris agreed on Charlamagne Tha God's radio show last October that Trump is a fascist, PBS brought on Trump-despising professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat for a story headlined "Trump ramps up his dangerous political rhetoric in final weeks of campaign."

It's apparently not "dangerous" to compare Trump to fascist dictators after two assassination attempts.

In that story, PBS reporter Laura Barron-Lopez even platformed Harris attacking Trump for a lack of transparency! Harris said: "He refuses to release his medical records. I have done it. Every other presidential -- every other presidential candidate in the modern era has done it. He is unwilling to do a '60 Minutes' interview, like every other major party candidate has done for more than half a century."

After press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre agreed two weeks later that Biden saw Trump as a fascist, PBS brought on Ben-Ghiat again for a segment headlined "How Trump's rhetoric compares to historic fascist language." In the liberal bubble of "public broadcasting," this smear is never "unfounded." Over and over with Trump, it sounds like the "PBS Pounce Hour."

The notion that Trump-supporting taxpayers have to turn over their hard-earned money for these transparently partisan "public media" outlets never stops being an outrage.

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Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.