Watergate reporter hits Biden speech for ‘deeply partisan tone:’ ‘Lost opportunity’

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Carl Bernstein: Biden speech became 'deeply partisan'

Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein said President Biden "lost an opportunity" to achieve unity with his speech.

Carl Bernstein, one of the two reporters who exposed the Watergate scandal, criticized President Biden’s recent speech as "deeply partisan" during a Friday night interview on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360.

While Bernstein did say he agreed with the beginning of it, he later suggested that Biden’s speech had been a missed opportunity to appeal to Republicans towards the end. 

"First of all, the beginning of the speech had a kind of deadly accuracy in terms of picturing Trump and a good deal of his movement as outside of any mainstream tradition in our politics, a radical tradition at odds with democracy," Bernstein suggested to guest host John Berman. 

"It’s a fact. It is a fact that many, if not most of the Republicans in the Senate agree with. They won’t say it out loud, but it is a fact," he said.

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA - SEPTEMBER 01: U.S. President Joe Biden delivers a primetime speech at Independence National Historical Park September 1, 2022 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. President Biden spoke on "the continued battle for the Soul of the Nation."   ((Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images))

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Bernstein then pivoted, saying that Biden had failed to reach out to Republicans.

"But then I think he missed a great opportunity, and that was to say ‘I want to see, we want to see even in our party, a Republican Party of its traditional conservative values that contributes to the debate of where our democracy should go in this country.’"

He hammered his point further by claiming, "I think he really missed something there where, look, to win, the Democrats need to bring over some Republicans. And Biden knows as well as anybody that there are a lot of traditional Republicans who might respond to such a proposition."

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrive at Fort Lesley J. McNair in Washington from a weekend trip to Rehoboth Beach, Del., Sunday, July 10, 2022.  (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

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Bernstein lamented further that Biden’s speech "went into a deeply partisan tone that was not there at the beginning." 

He summarized that it veered from common ground, "talking about the history of the country, the history of the presidency, the history of the Congress of the United States" and then Biden "went way off and then started patting his own administration on the back." 

Bernstein reiterated his point and summarized that Biden "lost an opportunity there and a lot of people who might have gone, who are Republicans and embraced what he was saying."

President Biden gives a speech on protecting American democracy in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 1st, 2022.  (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

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Bernstein’s comments echoed those of his previous employer. The Washington Post editorial board said Biden’s MAGA speech "fell short" and was "demeaning" to "conservatives of goodwill."