Watch How Reporters React When Biden Threatens to Run Them Over With Electric Truck

Critics are raising eyebrows at the media’s gushing reaction to an edgy joke made by President Joe Biden.

The moment: The president visited the Ford plant Tuesday in Dearborn, Michigan, and took the newly revealed electric Ford F-150 Lightning for a test drive on the factory track.

• Sitting in the driver’s seat with the window down, Biden chatted with the press until one journalist asked whether he could query the president about Israel.
• “No, you can’t — not unless you get in front of the car as I step on it,” he said, adding, “I’m only teasing.” 
• As he sped off, reporters laughed and clapped, with one announcing, “Best test driver ever.”

After Biden jokes about running over a reporter trying to ask him about Israel, many reporters start laughing; he then peels off and the press corps breaks into hysterical laughter pic.twitter.com/7pVn5vqMpI

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 18, 2021

The backlash: While left-wing critics fumed at Biden making light of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, other commentators on Twitter slammed the media reaction as overly fawning in light of Biden’s “teasing” threat.

• But others, like conservative pundit Scott Jennings, contrasted the velvet-glove treatment Biden received with national press coverage of former President Donald Trump’s 2017 truck-involved escapade.
• The Spectator’s Stephen Miller wondered how the press would have responded to Trump making a similar joke.

Behind the scenes: Biden, despite projecting an affable public image, has a reputation for adversarial private demeanor.

• On the campaign trail, the 78-year-old snapped at voters and the press with a variety of often unusual insults, including “lying dog-faced pony-soldier” and “one-horse pony.”