CNN media pundit Brian Stelter raised his eyebrows earlier this month by claiming “most right-wing media” is behind the growing pressure for Joe Biden not to talk about President Trump – but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday suggested that the 2020 Democratic candidate that should do.
“I do not think there should be debates,” Pelosi said out of the blue at a news conference in the Capitol, saying they do not want the debates to be “an exercise in guilt.”
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed CNN pundit Brian Stelter’s theory that conservative media were behind the story that Joe Biden had to skip debates.
“I would not legitimize a conversation with him, nor a debate in terms of the presidency of the United States. Now I know that the Biden campaign thinks about this in a different way,” Pelosi added.
Back on August 3, Stelter famously declared that calls for Biden to skip the debates “were mostly a right-wing media storm.”
At the time, Townhall.com Fox News political editor and contributor Guy Benson responded with a screenshot by Reagan Battalion of several headlines from The New York Times, Newsweek, even CNN, in which Stelter’s own colleague Joe Lockhart Biden warned Trump not to to debate.
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“It seems like this concept was not invented out of thin air by conservatives. It’s an idea driven by left-leaning figures / outlets …,” Benson replied.
The host “Reliable Sources” then appeared to shift his argument, writing in a tweet, “I am aware… Why imply otherwise to viewers, hour after hour?”
While Benson and Stelter were respectful in disagreement, others took to Twitter to incite Stelter for his attempts to blame “right-wing media,” which fueled such debate speculation.
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Three weeks later, Pelosi joined the chorus of prominent Democrats urging Biden to skip the debates, making Stelter’s first remark even more inaccurate.
Fox News’ Marissa Schultz and Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report
